New Adventures
by bhut
Summary: New adventures of Coraline and Wybie, as they with the help of Cat try to save the Lady of Summer...and the Beldam is along for the ride.
1. Chapter 1

**Out with a bang**

_Disclaimer: Only a few of characters are mine. Coraline and her friends and neighbours belong to Neil Gaiman and LAIKA studios._

...The metallic hand fell down into the watery depths of the well with a plop! Immediately, a pair of bulging, inhuman eyes, set in a noseless face, swivelled in the direction of the sound, and things would have gone much different and probably much worse for the Beldam and for Coraline, and for a number of other people, but at that moment there was another plop!.. and the black key, whose handle still resembled a button, hit the noseless face right in the noggin.

Immediately, a sexdactylous hand lunged up and seized the key, bringing down, down to the level of the bulging, inhuman eyes, set in a face that had no nose. "Ah!" spoke the mouth below the eyes. "The changeling's power is gone! Now I hold it! – but I must act fast, before the rest of the hags will begin to seek it! Yes – I shall act fast and my position in the Unseelie court will be assured!"

The bulging eyes swung round, along with the rest of the noseless face, seeking out anything else that had – or could have – fallen into the well alongside the black key, but the hand, which was actually much more smarter than its ordinary human counterpart, to put it lightly, was already climbing and scurrying out of the reach even of that inhuman, luminous gaze back to the rest of it.

To the rest of the Beldam, who was going to have plenty of problems of her own...

_[Break]_

Amazingly and possibly a bit hubrisly, Coraline Jones was bored.

Outside it was another rainy day, when the sky seemed to seek a recreation of the biblical flood and sought to wash away everything off the face of the earth. Consequently, everyone who had a home, thought that it would be prudent to stay in it, with a cup of hot tea or another appropriate liquid, and spend time with the family and friends.

Except for Coraline's folks. Somehow, undoubtedly due to his amazing computer skills, Mr. Jones managed to write a dissertation of some sort or other, and had been asked to go to Portland to defend it. Mrs. Jones, whose professional nose smelled blood in the water, and whose wifely loyalty demanded to ensure that it wouldn't be her husband's, decided to go along with her man and assist him – both in moral and organizational sense.

Unfortunately, Coraline was the odd Jones out. Clearly, her father's dissertation was a serious matter; so serious, that Coraline's exploratory nature would be completely counterproductive to successful execution of his report, so Coraline was left to guard the flat, with her friend Wybie for company.

Enter the rain, as mentioned above, as the rambunctious elements simply cut-off the lively girl from the rest of the world and her friends, human or otherwise, for not even as extreme an explorer as her would risk going outside, when sky and earth seemed to have bonded into one single and solid block of grey murkiness, and when exploration could easily lead to trip to the hospital or worse.

Therefore, Coraline was reduced to bare boredom, made worse by the fact that even her feline friend was absent, apparently either preferring Wybie's company to hers, or holed-up somewhere else, possibly in company of other cats or Cats, as the case may be.

Finally, there was the Beldam, who was most definitely not Coraline's friend at all. Rather, the strange creature was the closest thing that the young girl had for an enemy, or even an archenemy. But yet, the Beldam's obvious silence since her inglorious defeat at Coraline's hands (and Cat's paws) did appear rather ominous and Coraline was getting genuinely worried that the strange being from the Other World was up to something really no good, and that she, Coraline, was directly in the way of-

"No, that is ridiculous!" Coraline spoke fervently, as she spun on a chair (she bet herself a dollar that she would be able to do 25 spins without getting dizzy – so far, she was losing to herself for a twentieth time), "the key is gone, the door is locked! There is no way that the Beldam will be able to get here-"

There was a movement in the kitchen mirror – and it was not reflection of Coraline who was still spinning around on a chair. It was a reflection of the Jones' family kitchen, but rather it was the _other_ family kitchen...

It was at this unfortunate moment, as Coraline was struck with comprehension, something else struck her – gravity, or a loss of balance, as Coraline fell off her chair due to dizziness for the twenty-first time and dropped to the floor, as helpless as a bug stuck in jam. However, by a stroke of luck, she fell with her head twisted towards the kitchen mirror, and so, as she lay on the floor, unable to get herself up in fear of vomiting, the mirror partially remained in field of view, and therefore Coraline, as she lay perfectly still, was still to see what was going on in there, and moreover – to hear...

_[Break]_

The other kitchen had clearly seen better days, and these days were probably around the time when Coraline looked the door and threw away the key. It was completely, stark empty of everything, except for some basic furniture... and the Beldam, who was sitting in a position similar to Coraline's, her head half-turned away from the girl's view, her poise hunched and tensed.

"Has she been watching me?" Coraline wondered, but then realized that she was not: the Beldam's poise was wrong, the creature had been looking in the direction of the kitchen corridor, not at her, and right now, someone – or even several people – was exiting from that corridor into the kitchen.

Immediately, the Beldam's poise changed from hunched and tensed to ramrod-straight...and still tensed. "Why," the monstrous woman said purringly (and Coraline was much mystified about how was she able to hear her through the mirror), "if it isn't my other aunts! To what do I have the honour of your collective visit?"

Coraline stared. The Beldam had been quite inhuman and scary, but, with her button eyes put aside, she could have passed for a human, if seen from the back. However, her visitors – they were something else. However, they did have human shapes – a head and a body, two arms and two legs – that was the limit of their similarities to ordinary people.

The one on the left had skin of putrid yellow colour with hair the colour of dead seaweed, from which water continuously dropped. Her clothing seemed to be rotting from mildew, and she had no shoes, demonstrating two pairs of completely webbed toes. Her eyes appeared to be a pair of ice-pieces – rotting, black ice-pieces - and the smile that she bore on her face was just as cold, although there was not anything rotting in it: instead, the teeth resembled shiny, bony harpoons.

The one of the right had skin of a rotting green colour with hair the colour of fallen leaves, when they begin to rot. Her clothing was threadbare, albeit not rotten, and her toes and fingers seemed not webbed, but rather heavily clawed, resembling limbs of a bear rather than a human. Her eyes resembled a pair of embers with flames still lurking within – deep, deep within. Unlike her counterpart on the left, she was not smiling.

In addition, neither was the veritable giantess between the yellow- and the green-skinned humanoids. Rather, she was the colour of darkness, of darkness that never saw any light, and in place of eyes, she had two holes of even deeper darkness. There was nothing wrong with her teeth, though, as they glinted in a wicked green colour, and her claws, though relatively shorter than the claws of the green-skinned creature on her right, seemed to be hard and sharp enough to slice through steel.

In short, compared to the newcomers, the original Beldam seemed to be humane and feeble, and put in contrast against the giantess, actually vulnerable and small. Still, there was no evident fear in her gaze, and her voice, once she spoke to her visitors, seemed to be level and sarcastically cheerful.

"My aunties!" the Beldam was continuing to speak, gesticulating with her left hand and keeping her right out of Coraline's point of view. "What can I offer all of you for repast?"

"You have a glib tongue, Christabell, as it befits someone of your station, but this time it will help you not," the yellow-skin spoke in a voice that reminded Coraline of bubbles breaking from the surface of a still pond – of a very deep, deadly cold, still pond. "You have failed! Your other daughter had turned against you!"

"Nonsense!" the Beldam seemed to have actually smiled. "This is just a family misunderstanding – typical of this branch of family. Don't forget what I did to _my_ other mother, yes? Compared to this, you're dealing with some teenage tantrums, nothing more!"

"Perhaps so, but where _is_ the little darling?" the giantess spoke-up. Her voice was heavy and gravelly, the sound of an avalanche, falling deep within a mountain range. "Why wouldn't she greet us? After all, wouldn't it be proper?"

"I wouldn't know that myself," the Beldam shrugged. "My other mother was never too big on protocols herself, you know?"

"Lies!" the giantess rumbled, as she effortlessly threw away the kitchen table between the Beldam and the newcomers. "You have failed, Christabell, and for that you must be chastised!"

The Beldam did not say anything, but somehow her silence held the notes of the same perky defiance that her previous replies had, and her stance remained tall and proud.

"Trillobia, Vyrdahlia, let's begin!" the giantess rumbled, as she and her companions formed a semi-circle around the Beldam and began to chant something in a language that Coraline was certain had nothing to do with English, French, Spanish or any other language spoken in this world.

As they spoke the picture in the mirror slowly got saturated by the blinding white light and Coraline felt some sort of a primal fear rising her chest – this was something new, this was magic, and she was quite sure that that wasn't the kind of magic that she would want to get caught in. Consequently, she was no longer as attentive to the finer details, and so she didn't hear the Beldam chanting something quietly as well, nor did she see – moments before the mirror explode with light – how the Beldam's right arm, complete with a hand (albeit sown on with some rough stitches) – reach out and grab the yellow-skinned hag!

However, all of this has gone right over Coraline's head: the girl fainted.

_[Break]_

Wybie Lowat was bored stiff. The damn rain was coming down like there was no tomorrow, effectively cutting him off from the rest of the world and his friends, leaving him on his own with his grandma. What joy. Who was currently asleep, as she tended to do during bad weather. Double joy. In addition, Wybie himself just could not sleep – he would rather be out there, splashing through the puddles, possibly with Slugzilla or the cat... or Coraline.

Before Wybie could get his thoughts together and figure out why he thought about Coraline to begin with, there was a light knock on the windowpane. He looked – and there she was, Coraline, in her yellow rainy-day get-up, smiling invitingly at him.

Something hot and almost boiling rose in Wybie's blood. Coraline, a girl, was out there, having fun, while he, a boy, was stuck inside not having fun! This was something that needed to be rectified immediately. Grabbing his rainy-day coat and boots, Wybie raced into the corridor and through the front door of his room, into the heavy rains outside.

In addition, into the first adventure in his life, though back then he did not know it.

_[Break]_

Coraline slowly opened her eyes and got on her feet – she was no longer dizzy, and the kitchen mirror was back to normal, reflecting just their kitchen, and nothing more. Still, this did not stop Coraline from staring for several moments at it in vain hope of seeing some other scene from the other world, but there was nothing, nothing but a reflection of a girl with red eyes.

"Am I weeping for the Beldam?" Coraline asked her reflection. "After all, that was a wicked old witch... but yes, I probably am. This was wrong. This was wrong!"

Coraline whirled around and ran away from the kitchen to her bedroom. She would stay there for the rest of the day, and so she would not see her new friend Wybie running past the Pink Palaces, pursuing someone who looked vaguely like her in her rainy-day clothes...

_[Break]_

"Well, that was fun and educational," the Beldam said with a smile that demonstrated all of her teeth to her interlocutors who were still able to communicate with her. The remains of the third, Trillobia of the yellow skin, were lying at the Beldam's feet, where her remains should have laid instead. "Truly, my darling other aunts, every visit of yours is a treat!"

"You!" green-skinned Vyrdahlia recovered first, her ember eyes finally blazing with red flame. "You little human piece of-"

"Quiet," black-skinned giantess, Terraxia, put her hand down hard onto the shoulder of her last surviving compatriot. "We need her now, now that Trillobia is dead."

"But she has still failed! The key to the other world is still lost!"

"It's not lost – Trillobia told me who has it – a foolish little gahonga with big ambitions. Remember this, Christabell – pesky little upstarts with no respect for higher authorities never get anywhere but the grave, less they temper their attitude with humility and listen to those with higher wisdom."

The Beldam kept quiet, her black buttons tied to Terraxia's black coal pits, her mouth a lipless slit.

"Now then," Terraxia continued, taking the Beldam's silence as a sign of agreement. "In a matter of time, we will meet at the assembly of the Unseelie court, where you will be treated accordingly, whether as a rebellious little failure or a proper replacement of the late Trillobia. Think on it, little one, and remember that promptness and proper obeisance to yours truly is the right start to those affairs. Vyrdahlia, we're leaving now."

Green-skinned Vyrdahlia snarled but kept quiet: throughout Terraxia's speech, the Beldam kept her arms on her shovel, the same shovel that she used to put to rest her other mother and Vyrdahlia knew that no matter how sharp her claws were, Christabell's shovel was sharper yet.

As the much-older hags left, the Beldam collapsed from her stance into a puddle. "My girl," she said softly, her voice full of genuine longing, "my Coraline, my darling little girl! I am so sorry, but your mother will need more of your courage to stand strong in the long days ahead – or at least go out with a bang!" and an amazingly joyless smile graced her inhuman lips.

Therefore, still deep in thought, the Beldam retreated to her private chamber, where she got back in her position to watch Coraline.

In addition, it was from there she saw what was going-on.

In addition, she did not like it.

_[Break]_

Wybie Lowat was getting tired. He also felt lost and confused – he just couldn't keep up with Coraline, and that was just wrong: the grounds at the Pink Palaces just weren't this big, and there was something different about Coraline as well, and where were they, and-

He never saw the green hill between two trees open wide, creating a proper corridor, until it was too late.

_To be continued..._


	2. The Other World

**The other world**

_Disclaimer: Only a few of characters are mine. Coraline and her friends and neighbours belong to Neil Gaiman and LAIKA studios._

The next time Coraline woke, it was late afternoon, and the rain had stopped falling. True, the land around the flats was still overly saturated with rain water, and the layer of black and dark brown mud has not even began to dry, and neither did the abundant puddles, which now lay all around the yard, like gaping watery holes. The sky, however, was no longer truly overcast, but rather was covered in patches of clear sky and clouds, and the clouds were losing.

Coraline looked at the view outside her room and paused, deep in thought, regarding her further actions. On one hand, she could stay in her room, knowing that probably at any moment something scary and monstrous could climb out of one the mirrors – from the kitchen, the bathroom, or the corridor – and take her onto the other side. Alternatively, she could go outside and have some good times with Wybie instead. What a tough choice, right?

_[Break]_

...It took Coraline a matter of minutes to put on her rainy day gear, her bright yellow coat and matching boots. Usually, this could be a lengthy process, but after the earlier events, Coraline did not want to spend more time inside than necessarily. "I will probably have to drape them or something," she muttered to herself quietly, "when I go back home," she paused, "when I go back home..." Something about getting back home bothered her, something from the past, but she could not quite put her finger on it, and besides...

Coraline frowned with concern back outside. It was getting late, and if she didn't hurry, Wybie's grandmother, being who she is, probably wouldn't let Wybie go out and play with her – and right now, Coraline wanted to have some friendly company with her real badly, even if that company was only temporary. Consequently, she stopped dawdling on her thoughts, and quickly went outside, determined to visit Wybie before the sunset.

However, as Coraline was walking from one end of the Pink Palaces to the other, the first being she met was Cat, who apparently was just as eager for Coraline's company, as Coraline was for anybody's: he immediately trotted to the girl, and began to rub against her legs, purring with a loud intensity.

Coraline smiled, probably for the first time since today, but it was still a rather sad smile. "Hey Cat," she said slowly. "Did you know that the other mother is gone?"

Cat obviously did not, as he immediately stopped tugging at her pants and stared at Coraline with rather startled eyes. "It's true!" Coraline insisted. "Several hags came to her, and did some sort of a chant, and it was all over!"

Cat nodded, visibly almost as startled by the whole development, as Coraline herself was. Then, however, he shook himself, and began again to tug at Coraline's pant legs, as if suggesting that the girl would follow him.

And Coraline did not disappoint, but followed her feline friend: today has been just too freaky for her to let things just go. Consequently, she went away from the direction of the Lovats' domestic domain, as Cat was trotting briskly before her, occasionally looking backwards to ensure that Coraline was not getting lost.

And there was already a good chance of her doing exactly that. Though the rain stopped, and the sky was clearing, it was already late in the afternoon, and the afternoon was slowly going towards the evening, with the sun slowly setting over the horizon, down from the sky.

Abruptly, Cat stopped, and so did Coraline. Right before them, lay tracks of Wybie...and some other tracks, which Coraline initially mistook for footprints of boots, but then she realized that on the contrary, these were footprints of bare feet, with toes lying tightly one to another forming a boot-like footprint, and they led Wybie's footprints...straight to a small green hill, where both vanished abruptly.

"Now what?" Coraline helplessly asked her friend, not expecting anything in reply, but receiving one anyways:

"I have no idea."

There was a pause, filled only by twit-twitting of some birds, as the pair stared at each other.

"You can talk...I mean, I can understand you?" Coraline slowly said, as if she did not trust herself. "I thought that this worked only in the other world."

"True, but the two of you are standing at its doorway, so to speak, and I thought that certain rules can be wavered here," spoke-up a third voice.

Slowly, Coraline and Cat turned around, to see a roughly humanoid creature emerge from the nearby tree. It looked female, but was dressed in nothing but a mane of curly black hair, which obscured all body parts that needed to be obscured, and the limbs terminated in thorny claws, rather than human hands.

"Greetings, travellers," the apparition spoke, as it bowed forwards, respectfully. "I am Ashira, the guardian of this doorway."

"Um, hello," Coraline did a timid little wave in return. "We're, ah, looking for our friend, Wybie Lowat. He is also a human, just like me. Have you seen him?"

"I do believe that I've seen someone like that," Ashira said thoughtfully. "He was lured in by a gahonga, who was, unfortunately, in a possession of a certain key, that allowed it to bypass my wards, and so the two of them went beyond, into our world."

"Can you let us in so that we could rescue him?" Coraline pressed on, still polite.

"But certainly, I will let you two in," Ashira nodded. "What's more, I will even give you advice: do not eat or drink anything from anyone who did not give you an oath of safety and good conduct, and what is even more important, beware the hags."

"The hags," Coraline slowly repeated.

"Yes," Ashira nodded. "The covey. They've been steadily encroaching onto our lands, and not even Queen of Summer was able to stop their advance, not since..." Ashira shook her head even more wildly than usual and then visibly changed the subject. "Anyways, if your friend is still in the gahonga's clutches, it's the Queen of Summer who is most likely to help you."

"And who do we find her?"

"That's easy – just follow the path that will start on the other side to the door and don't go off of it," Ashira said calmly. "And do not forget to keep wary of those who do not give you an oath of friendship, or at least good conduct!"

"We will," Coraline nodded solemnly. "Can we now go and rescue Wybie?"

"Very well," Ashira nodded and turned around towards the hill. "I, Ashira of the Seelie court, allow them entry in good conscience and good will! Go in now and be in peace!"

The hill elongated and extending, forming an open doorway. Coraline and Cat entered it, and then the hill snapped shut.

_[Break]_

For few moments after the two adventurers entered the doorway in the hill, all was quiet, with just squirrels and birds doing their usual thing. Then a foot in a sensible black shoe was put down into the clearing, then another one, and then rest of the person in a dotted black and white dress and a matching sunhat that obscured a pair beetle-black button eyes from the setting sun.

And in one of her hands, there was a shovel.

"Well?" the Beldam spoke nonchalantly, making a big show of speaking to no one in particular. "I do believe that my erstwhile child and her familiar of a friend have gone that a-way. To whom do I speak about it? Maybe... to you?" she whirled around, putting the shovel firmly between herself and Ashira, who tried to sneak-up on her, thorny claws ready to strike.

For several moments a pair of button eyes stared into a pair of woodcarved (and coloured in a leafy green colour) ones. Neither blinked, and not because neither of them could.

"You have no right!" Ashira spoke finally.

"My dear, what I have is a shovel with a metal blade in the end. With it, I could dig through a lot of things, including your wards," the Beldam replied.

"Perhaps, but wouldn't you rather try the magic words?" Ashira finally ground out, realizing her opposite's point.

To her surprise, that point – the tip of the shovel, really – wavered and finally went down. `

"Very well," the Beldam said in a brisk, and determined, tone of voice. "I, Christabell de Veaux, Beldam of the Unseelie court, ask the guardian of this doorway for the permission to pass freely and without harm in the heart!"

There was a pause, as Ashira actually looked startled. "That's not what you were supposed to say," she finally stammered.

"No, that's not what I was expected to say," the Beldam said, smiling. It was not a very nice smile. "But that, as far as I have figured it out, would lead to me being eventually killed by my daughter, so I am trying the other path first. So – will you grant me your permission?"

"With a shovel, made from iron, no doubt," Ashira said distastefully.

"Yes, well, in times like these a good weapon is never amiss," the Beldam said airily. "After all, Trilobia is no more; there are only three of us left now."

"Really?" Ashira's woodcarved eyes could not have expressions, "that is interesting news. And yet you are asking my permission rather than taking it."

The Beldam just continued to smile, or rather to demonstrate her sharp teeth. "Very well," Ashira said. "I, Ashira of the Seelie Court, the guardian of the doorway, grant thee a free passage for as long as you respect the customs of the land and promise no unprovoked aggression!"

"The promise is freely given!" the Beldam said solemnly and spat on her arm. "Let's shake."

"Let's!" Ashira spat on her own thorny hand and shook the Beldam's clawed hand.

As the doorway in the hill opened behind the hand-shaken pair, the forest around them held its breath...

_To be continued..._


	3. The Adventure Begins

**The adventure begins**

_Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Coraline and her friends belong to Neil Gaiman and to LAIKA studios. _

"Well, wow; I just tell you what – wow!" Coraline whispered, as the doorway behind her and Cat closed down and became just an ordinary green hill once again. "The Beldam's domain was never anything like that."

And indeed, this portion of the other world was indeed quite different from Coraline's previous visits to the Beldam's domain. Whereas back there everything had been a copy of the Pink Palaces, if only down in different detail (sometimes _very_ different detail), now, Coraline and Cat stood in a forest – a real forest, one that most definitely was not on the grounds of the Pink Palaces.

"Cat, where are we?" Coraline muttered, as she just stood there, looking around.

"In the other world. Again," the feline said glumly, as it too looked around, but noticed what Coraline missed. "Just look up at the sky, if you don't believe me."

Coraline did believe her friend, but she looked up in the sky all the same – and just stared. "...Is it just me?" she said after a pause, "or is there the sun, the moon and the stars all at the same time?"

"This is the other world," Cat replied, apparently unimpressed by Coraline's keen observation skills. "There is no time here as it is back on the other side of the door."

"What do you mean, no time?"

"Exactly that. There is no day or night, no change of the seasons, none of that business, you know?"

"Really?"

"Mmm-hmm, you can assume that that is one of the perks of this place, but I, for one, never felt exactly comfortable being in a place where I never knew when I was. I mean, if I stay here long enough, I begin to feel like a fly stuck in slowly drying-out tree sap, and then I just get out of here and go back to our place, never mind what season it is back there."

"Really?" Coraline said with a frown, sadly listening to her friend with only one ear. "Are you sure that it's not these whispers that get you out of here instead?"

"Those? Those whispers are always here – the grasses whisper to breezes, the breezes whisper to springs, and to whom those springs babble, I care not. Just ignore them as I do, and follow the path."

"What path?"

"The one we're walking upon, of course!"

Coraline looked down and stared once again. She was doing it a lot lately, she knew, but honestly...

"This is like Oz!" she finally said, as realized just what was lying under their feet. "Only instead of yellow bricks, we have silverweed cinquefoil instead!"

"Is that what it's called?" Cat replied, uninterested. "Personally, I never cared how one kind of weed was different from another."

"Except for catnip?"

"Never!" Cat's fur sparkled from indignation, "never ever say that name in vain! You insult all the cats in the world by doing otherwise!"

"All right, all right! You win!" Coraline said, almost laughing despite herself. "Now stop hissing!"

Cats do not blink in confusion (and do not get confused in the first place), but Coraline's friend certainly tried to do so. "That's not my hissing," he said slowly.

Just as meticulously, the two friends turned in the direction from which the hissing was coming from in the first place, and saw the rising head of a snake, preparing to strike. The reptile was probably longer than Coraline and Wybie combined, covered in scales the colour of sunset, and with eyes the colour of bright gold.

Coraline and Cat, however, not intended to stick around long enough to appreciate the reptile's physical beauty, and instead whirled around and ran as fast as they could, lest the titanic animal would be able to take a bite out of them after all. They ran and ran, and when they finally stopped... it was hopeless – they were lost.

"It's hopeless – we're lost," Coraline said after a brief pause, once the two of them stopped running and tried to catch their breath. "We shall never find Wybie now."

"We're only partially searching for Wybie," Cat countered. "That Ashira creature suggested that we seek out the Lady of the Summer, yes?"

"Your point being?"

""I'm not a dog," Cat said both apologetically and haughtily, as only a cat could. "I cannot track Wybie or his companion around here, whether on silverweed or not. We were kind of flying by ear by then, and-"

"Stop," Coraline said with a sigh. "This is just as it was before, when the Beldam made all your paths go flat or something – you just weren't as smart or slick as you supposed yourself to be, so, how about you got over yourself, and we figure our way now?"

"Never ever suggest to a cat that he or she may not be as great as they think they are," Cat replied, gruffly. "In fact, I forgive you only because we're friends and you're not going to bring up that incident ever again-" He paused. "You know, it's a funny thing because I thought that you have said earlier that the Beldam's gone or something?"

"She is," Coraline said, her mood deteriorating even further. "Several other hags – even uglier than she – came over to her and blasted her with some magic or other."

"Oh. And you know it how?"

"I saw it through the kitchen mirror, somehow," Coraline admitted. "Look, can we not talk about her anymore? She may have been crazier than a bag of hammered hamsters, but I never wanted her dead." A pause. "And I never really wanted her dead, either."

"That's because your heart is pure and true, even if a bit naive," Cat muttered, mostly to himself rather than to Coraline, but the girl half-heard anyways:

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Cat said quickly. "Come on, let's find someone friendly than the one we left behind to tell us where to go from here, okay?"

"Fine," Coraline said bemusedly, and the two walked-off, each still thinking his or hers own thoughts.

_[Break]_

The very-much-alive Beldam was standing before a very large, very old weeping willow tree with a very big hole in its' trunk.

"Sister, sister, owl-sister, I call upon your wisdom and knowledge for some advice!"

There was some noise from the depths of the tree, and a huge eagle owl, easily three meters in height, exited the willow, landing in front of the Beldam.

"Speak, hoo-hoo, your questions!" it said in a booming voice.

"I seek out my daughter, and her familiar," the Beldam said calmly. "Do you know where to they went, what goals they seek?"

"They seek the Lady of Summer, hoo-hoo, in hopes of rescuing their friend!"

"And where is that friend? And where is the gahonga that brought him here?"

"Your fellow hags have got them both – they will look after your daughter and her companion as well!"

"Oh they will, will they?" the Beldam clearly had opinions about that kind of help, but she was not about to share them with her interlocutor. "Perhaps, but I do think that my daughter still requires her mother's guidance – my aunts may not be exactly who she needs. Therefore, I believe I will ask you for assistance-"

"And what makes you think that you can ask for it, hooo?" the giant owl straightened up even taller and stretched its wings, easily 6 meters from tip to tip.

The Beldam paused, and seemed to grow taller and slimmer to a point where she towered slightly over the giant owl. The breezes, that were circulating around the willow stilled.

"By the blood and legacy of my 'mother', by her skull and bones, by her power over birds of the air, I can demand it," the Beldam said, and behind the buttonholes of her black button eyes, there was a glimmer of something white and cold, the colour of an unexpected hailstorm in summer.

It appeared that the whole world held its breath, and the giant owl seemed to shrink somewhat, as it expected to hear the ritual of command that would seal its' fate.

"So," the Beldam continued, returning to her average height and skin colour, "I believe that I can certainly ask for the service of one of your people in return for this." She reached into her satchel (that she had tied to her shovel) and produced not a component for a magical ritual, but a small book in a pre-WWII format with a picture of the albatross on it. "And I'll even pay for his or her service with this book."

"You can command but you barter, hooo?"

"I'm not my mother – I do things my way," the Beldam said simply, "and this is the usual way for the services of your people, yes?"

"The collection of poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge," the giant owl cast a critical eye over the book. "Fiction too, I see – hooo!"

"Well, I don't require a particular member of your people," the Beldam said calmly. "All I need is a spare pair of eyes and ears to help me seek and reach my girl before my remaining aunts do."

"Remaining aunts, hoo-hoo?"

"My aunt Trillobia is no more – _so_ sad, isn't it?" Black button eyes cannot express emotion, but a trick of the light put a twinkle into them that somehow belied the Beldam's words.

"Trillobia is dead, hooo-hooo!"

"Who's dead, who's dead, whee-whee?"

A small screech-owl looked out of the willow hole: "Who's dead, who's dead?!"

"Ah, and here are your assistant, hoo-oo!" the giant owl hooted.

"Looks kind of small and inexperienced," the Beldam was rather sceptical, even as she handed over the book over the giant owl, who eagerly took it with its' talons.

"I am fast, I am alert, I am a quick learner, and my cousin is working at Hogwarts! ™" the screech owl said excitedly.

"I see," the Beldam was still quite sceptical about the qualities of her new aide, but also unwilling to press the matter ever further for her own reasons. "Well then, let's go, Howlet."

"I have a name of my own! How cool is that!"

And off they went into the depths of the Other World, the Beldam and her new owl familiar.

_To be continued..._


	4. Adventures Continue

**Adventures continue**

_Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Coraline and friends belong to Neil Gaiman and LAIKA studios._

Wybie Lowat was a thoroughly miserable boy, as only a boy that had been put into a magical cage that hanged off a branch of a giant oak tree could be.

And to think that it all had started so _good_! He was following Coraline, who led him to this magical place, with talking trees and flowers and even butterflies! ...There were no slugs per se, but Wybie could be an adaptable boy: he figured that next time he would bring Slugzilla with him, and they will have a good talk then.

Then Coraline turned around, and she was not Coraline at all, but some other girl, albeit still a pretty one. She smiled winsomely at Wybie and asked if he would be so kind as to come some way with her – there were some very important people that she would like him to meet.

By his nature, Wybie was shy, but he was also a boy, and when he was asked by a pretty girl to meet some very important people, he wouldn't say no, and said "yes" instead, and followed her off the path into the woods, where – among some rather dark and nasty-looking fir trees – their trip came to a sudden end.

"...There were two of them," he explained to his fellow prisoner. "One of them was human-sized – maybe around the height of Mrs. Jones, one of my neighbours, but with a skin the colour of really sickly green and hair like fire – and matching eyes. She was nasty, especially with those claws of hers – they were more like a grizzly bear's than a human's was! But the second – I don't know, she's just black, black as coal or something, I couldn't even make-out her eyes or features, except for those teeth, that just gleaned with this coppery green colour – it just wasn't natural!"

"They're not," Wybie's neighbour agreed, in a voice reminiscent of wind playing among the tree leaves and twigs. "The hags of the Unseelie court, Terraxia and Vyrdahlia, they and their sister are a blight on this land!"

"They have a sister? Great – what's she like?" Wybie muttered sarcastically, but his interlocutor took his question to be genuine.

"You wouldn't like her at all – Trillobia is her name, and though she is the weakest of the hags, she's also the one most hateful towards the children of the human race!"

"Oh, I don't know," Wybie muttered sceptically. "My friend Coraline – she had a run-in with someone who wanted to sew buttons onto her eyes or something!"

"Indeed? Can you tell me more?"

And Wybie – seeing that he had nothing else to do – did exactly that.

_[Break]_

The best thing about not knowing where to exactly to go, is that you are free to go anywhere, and that was what Coraline and Cat did: they just chose a random direction and walked in it.

To make matters more intense, there was no external direction signs in which to go: the sun, the moon and the stars still shone just as brightly overhead as they did when the pair started their trek, and still from the same positions in the sky.

"...Time really does stand still here," Coraline said after a while, during which she had busied herself by observing shadows of trees and shrubs and similar immobile objects (as opposed to birds and butterflies and dragonflies and other creatures whose shadows moved all over the place). "The shadows do not move, unless their sources move to begin with!"

"Of course," Cat replied casually. "That may seem neat to you at first, but then you just learn to accept in stride and adjust your hunting strategy accordingly."

"Hunting strategy? What do you hunt here – there aren't any rats."

"No, but butterflies work just as well and... are you listening to me?"

"No," Coraline guiltily admitted. "I think I hear somebody talking...and having a party."

"Really?" Cat was clearly sceptical. "You know, around here one can hear all sorts of sounds, maybe-"

"No, I'm sure," Coraline was adamant. "That is a party going on or something like it. Let's go and see – maybe Wybie's there."

"I doubt that," Cat muttered, but followed Coraline all the same.

_[Break]_

Of course, luck being what it was lately, Wybie wasn't at that party at all – which was held at a foot of a sweet-smelling honeysuckle bush at the roots of which bubbled a little spring and a brook. Around the brook sat several tiny, child-like creatures with slightly webbed fingers and toes, and skins the colour of water or ice. A raccoon the size of a horse was sitting next to them, too.

As soon as the tiny children saw Coraline, one of them jumped up and ran-up to her, before making a bow.

"Hello!" it said in a happy voice. "I am Splanxty the sprite and these are my friends and our cousins, the rime sprite. Oh, and this is our friend and neighbour, Coney."

"Hello," Coraline said, as she tried to her best to curtsy back. "I am Coraline, a human, and this my friend Cat. Sorry to impose, but have you seen our friend, Wybie Lovat? He's a human too."

"Sorry, but you're the first human we've ever met," Splanxty said sadly.

"He's travelling with a gahonga, we've heard," Cat suddenly spoke-up, as he suspiciously eyed the giant raccoon.

"He does, does he?" the sprite repeated in a more thoughtful voice. "Well, we're sorry, but we don't see too many gahongas – they are too weird for our taste."

"Well, I see," Coraline said sadly. "Well, sorry to impose, me and Cat we'll be off to search for our friend-"

"No, no, we insist – please, sit down and have a rest," the sprite literally jumped up and down in excitement. "A most splendiferous thing had occurred – Trillobia is gone!"

"Trillobia?" Coraline had heard that name, but she was not ready to reveal to the sprite and his friends the circumstances. "Who's she?"

"Don't you know, friend human? Trillobia was one of the covey of Unseelie hags, a most hateful creature, with skin like yellow mould and with hair like rotten sea-weed?"

"You don't say," Coraline said, who actually had seen a similar-coloured creature not too long (though who could tell in this land, forgotten by time?) ago. "And now she's dead, you say?"

"Oh yes!" the sprite said excitedly. "She and her fellow hags have gathered their covey in order to chastise somebody, but this time it didn't work, and Trillobia was slain instead!"

"And how do you know that?" Cat asked quietly, his eyes blue and intense.

"Why, friend, do you not know that Trillobia was truly the bane of all the waters that flow around here? With her forces of monstrous crabs, and many-headed hydras, and razoreel swarms, she would despoil and desecrate any and every source of water she were able to reach and grasp, and was our greatest enemy! Now – _she is no more!_ Hooray for the hero who had slain the hag!"

"Yes, hooray," Coraline agreed, half-glumly and half-thoughtfully, as she remembered her past vision:

_Three monstrous hags there has been the coal-black giantess, one with green skin, one with yellow. They were to chastise the Beldam with some sort of magic, but now it seems that one of them is dead instead. So, does that mean that _the Beldam_ is alive instead? Moreover, if she is, is she...more dangerous or not?_

Abruptly, Coraline got up. "I'm sorry," she said, slightly embarrassed. "But I've remembered that we are also looking for the Lady of Summer. Do you know where can find her?"

"Just follow the clouds," the giant raccoon spoke-up suddenly in a voice vaguely similar to Wybie's grandmother. "They'll lead you to her, you can be sure."

"Really? Well, thank you," Coraline said, managing to keep her shock under control. After all, this advice seemed to be very fit for this strange, chaotic place. "Our best wishes for your party!"

"Good luck to you to!"

_[Break]_

"So- so- so- where are we going?" the screech owl was flying in rings around the Beldam's head. "Where to, where to, where to?"

"We're looking for my daughter," the Beldam pursed her lips, partially from aggravation but partially in thought. "Since she and her familiar are looking for her _friend_, and her friend, I reckon, was in companionship with a gahonga, who foolishly thought to challenge my remaining aunts with a symbol of my office..."

"So? So-so?"

"My aunt Vyrdahlia's domain is in the fore, and more easily assessable than Terraxia's, so we'll be going there first, yes, and if we're lucky, we'll be there first, before my daughter does."

"Halt!"

"Or maybe not."

For few long moments, the Beldam eyed – with barely concealed distaste – her newest obstacle: another tree-nymph, similar to the guardian of the doorway, but dressed in some bark-like armour, and armed with a long spear.

It was probably that spear that made the case: the Beldam did not move into an attacking position, but one of neutrality. "Fairly met on this road," she began, but the spear-wielder interrupted her:

"No, we're not."

"Oh?"

"For a long time did I struggle to break-up the covey of the Unseelie, who blot our lands, and never could I even come close. Yet you manage to achieve that without a loss to yourself."

"I think," the Beldam said, "that I won't justify this with an answer at all."

"Why shouldn't I slay you, and thus break the covey's power for good? With just two hags, they won't be able to do, what three of them can!"

"Ah, but I am under protection of the guardian and the laws of your land," the Beldam suddenly replied, smiling. It was not a very nice smile, in fact it bordered on gloating. "And you cannot break them, not if I adhere to them to begin with."

"You may hide behind your cleverness and your words, changeling, but I will catch up to you yet, and once I do, your covey will never gather again."

"Consider me duly warned," the Beldam said, looking very unimpressed by this speech as she walked past the spear-wielder. "Guess we will meet again – see you!"

And she walked past her interlocutor, ignoring the latter's woodcarved eyes boring into her back, until the sylvan gloom of the borderlands of Vyrdahlia's domain swallowed her and the owl.

_To be continued..._


	5. Trouble Starts

**Trouble starts**

_Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Coraline and friends belong to Neil Gaiman and to LAIKA studios._

Despite the odd sounding of the raccoon's advice, Coraline and Cat very quickly found their path – or at least _a_ path: a sandy trail surrounded by some shrubs as well as patches of greenery in the middle. Moreover, although it was not as nice as the trail of silverweed that the two friends had encountered when they had passed through the hill, it was serviceable enough, and therefore accepted.

Well, 'accepted' would be the wrong word. When all was done and said, the two friends did not have a lot of choice anymore – they just had to find Wybie, or that gahonga creature, or Wybie and that gahonga creature, or the Lady of Summer, or Wybie – you get the point.

Cat, however, had a different point in mind:

"So, let's get the story straight: the Beldam is alive, and it's a different hag that's dead," he was taking to Coraline. "So, that's still good news for us, right?"

"I guess," Coraline replied, uninterested in talking about her other mother or whoever that the Beldam was to her. "It's probably not a good thing, but, really, I don't like the idea of her being dead either." She paused. "I guess I don't like the idea of anybody being dead at all."

"That's 'cause you're a human," Cat shrugged. "Now as a cat, I have to struggle daily for my food and drink-"

"Wybie or I always leave you some dry cat food at night and wet cat food during the day," Coraline could not help on pointing it out.

"Regardless," Cat's glare could have stunned a mouse twenty paces away from him, "regardless of your kind offerings that taste like- well, they _taste_ and that's all that is to it, a cat like myself must catch and kill daily all sorts of feathery or furry snacks, so I am more callous in face of certain danger."

"Really? I mean I know that that is true when you killed the chief rat back in the Beldam's house, but here you, well, haven't-"

"That's because I am not hungry to begin with," Cat shrugged.

"What? Not hungry? But we have been here for-" Coraline trailed off.

"Exactly," Cat said in a smug voice that only a cat could speak in. "There is no time here, nor any, ahem, body needs that depend on it."

"What? But that's not natural!"

"We've been walking around a place that has the sun, the moon and the stars in the sky all at the same time," Cat said wryly. "This place is never natural, just nice – or not so nice. Therefore, let us hurry and find Wybie or at least someone who can help us find her before it is too late for him!"

It was at that point that the banter of the two friends was interrupted by something far less friendly – cries for help.

"Cat," Coraline said slowly, "do you hear what I am hearing?"

Cat hesitated, before replying. "We really shouldn't stray off the path – again," he finally admitted. "This place is hard enough to get around using them, let alone-"

"Cat. Please," Coraline said plaintively. "This just might be who we are looking for."

"Who? Wybie or the Lady of Summer?" Cat asked wryly.

Coraline's eye twitched, she abruptly turned and walked off the path, swatting aside various shrubs as she passed through them. Cat, cursing his more diminutive physical stature (as compared to Coraline's) could only hurry in attempt to try to catch up to her.

_[Break]_

"I must say, youngster that that was a most exciting story I have heard since the hags have bound me."

"It is? I'm sorry; I haven't realized that you've been stuck here for so long...wherever here is."

"Youngster, here, in the land of the fey, time has no meaning, but you're right. It is for too long that I've been bound here, and may be bound longer yet."

"Why is that?" Wybie could not help but ask.

"Once upon a time, there were three of the hags – Trillobia the defiler of water, Vyrdahlia the blighting flame, and Terraxia, the black horror from deep underground. Together, their covey had suborned the chief of the oreads, and she became their fourth, the Old Woman of the Mountain, the mountain hag. With her help, they were able to bind me as well. Then their fourth had left for other parts, and has suborned a human child instead. And that child became the fifth hag, the fifth Beldam."

"But that's not Coraline – I told you she told me that she beat that old woman or whatever, with my help, I should add!"

"Yes, she did – but now with the demise of Trillobia, her enemy will join the covey and grow stronger yet. When that happens, I fear both our world and your friend will be in more trouble than ever before!"

"No!" Wybie said firmly. "You don't know Coraline – she will rescue us yet!"

"We will see, youngster, we will see..."

_[Break]_

"Well, here we are, and where's the crier?" Cat said with open scepticism, as he and Coraline began to look around for the (abruptly terminated) cries for help, failing to see anybody at all. "Friend, have you forgotten that here nothing is exactly as it seems, really?"

"I haven't forgotten, but Cat, really, what has exactly led your suspicions-"

It would be probably safe to say that Cat was the one who noticed first the huge spider – almost the size of small chicken – as it climbed down the tree trunk in order to fall straight onto Coraline's neck and nape. Coraline, however, would later always claim to have noticed the spider's shadow descend before Cat did, and consequently she was the one who reacted first: by jumping away and squalling so loudly, that wild birds flew away in panic, even as the spider fell, missing her by few centimetres, onto the needle-strewn ground.

Even as the huge vermin landed onto all of its eight feet, Cat jumped, yowling almost as loudly as Coraline was squalling, and landed onto the spider's neckless head, where he began to scratch and bite the oversized arachnid.

The spider did not like this one bit: it squealed and began to flee, flailing around in order to shake Cat off it. Coraline, however, had enough: she jumped to the still dizzy vermin and kicked it hard, causing it to roll around (Cat jumped away just in time)... and to turn around, facing Coraline. The spider's frontal half was covered in rather disgusting-looking ichor, with the color of fresh snot, of all things, but the spider's impressive fangs (looking long and sharp enough to be fishhooks) were dripping venom instead.

"Poor little witch-girl, prepare to fade," the spider hissed in an oddly clear voice.

"Hey, whom are you calling a witch?" Coraline said in an indignant voice.

"A girl with a black cat!"

"Well, at least I have a brain bigger than a walnut!"

"Coraline, please, you flatter this thing – spiders don't have brains, all they have is some gunk between their eyes – all eight of them," Cat said scornfully, as he fluffed up his fur and snarled back at the monstrous arachnid.

"Gunk, have I? Perhaps, but I am not the one walking around not knowing where to go!"

"Well what do you know? Other than harassing young girls and their friends!"

"I know how you can reach the gahonga!"

"Oh really? And how's that – by the sandy path or by the path of silverweed?" Coraline did not look too impressed with the spider, but then again, the reverse was also true.

"Hah! The home of her ladyship may be so close, yet to go straight to it would be like crossing the seven seas and a desert besides! One must see that red fly agaric over there, go to the right of it, count seven grassy knolls, and reach a ravine. Once you cross the ravine, you must cross the field, and only then, then, behind a mighty oak tree, will you find whom you seek! But beware the hags, my mistresses!" the spider yelled a parting shot and fled into the trees, vanishing from the sight of Coraline and Cat within moments.

The latter pair just exchanged gloomy looks. "That is likely to be a trap," Cat said flatly.

"Of course it is," Coraline sighed in regret and disgust. "The Beldam used rats, her aunts, apparently, use spiders or similar vermin."

"So?"

"So nothing. We defeated the Beldam, we can defeat her aunts. Let's go – it's not like we can find any path any time soon either."

"We can try," Cat argued, but his heart was not in it.

Coraline shook her head. "We can run and we can hide, but they're just like the Beldam, only less subtle. And more ugly. Let's go – one way or another, we must do we can to rescue Wybie and maybe the gahonga as well."

Cat nodded in agreement:

"Let's go and find those knolls, shall we?"

_[Break]_

The forest met the Beldam with an almost literal wall of gloom – there was naught but pine and larch, silver fur and spruce. No animal or smaller vermin rustled under foot, no bird or bat fluttered among the prickly branches. There was no life, and even the trees looked partially dead, chocked by prodigious amounts of moss.

"Lovely," the Beldam muttered to herself as she wrinkled her nose from distaste, but her screech owl heard her anyways.

"Are we going in there, whee-eee?" the small bird hooted from the top of the Beldam's sunhat.

"Here's what's going to happen," the Beldam said gently, as she took her companion off the hat. "Or, more correctly, here's what happened. My daughter, you see, has a quick, a fast-learning intelligence – but it is still green, and her heart is still pure and naive. Therefore, she does not know that my aunts as well as she thinks she does. And this means, this means war."

"War? But why, whee-eee?"

"Because I am not letting them do to my daughter what their sister did to me," the Beldam growled. Once again, something flashed behind the black buttons, something of a completely different colour than before. "It's time for me to live or die for my beliefs, and for at least one other aunt of mine to have a reckoning!"

"A reckoning, how exciting, whee-eee!"

"Something tells me," the Beldam said, calming down, "that you don't fully understand what 'a reckoning' means. Well, fair enough. I believe that your services are no longer needed anyway. Feel free to go home."

"What?" the screech owl puffed itself up with indignation. "You can't-"

"Oh, can't I?" the Beldam's voice – just like her grip on the tiny bird – was surprisingly light, but it would not fool a deaf person. "And why is that?"

The bird froze, aware of something else lurking behind the Beldam's black button eyes. "Because?" it managed to squawk nonetheless.

The Beldam smiled at that reply – the kind of smile that showed-off the sharpness of her teeth and little else. "Do you know even know what is there, in my aunt Vyrdahlia's forest?"

"...No?" the bird squawked again.

"I thought so. Very well, let us make a deal. Are you a fast flyer?"

"Yes!"

"Then you fly over these woods as fast as you can and seek out me or my daughter on the other side, in the estate of my aunt. If you manage to come there before me, you'll keep your job; if not, well..."

The screech owl flew off like a bullet from a slingshot. The Beldam's button eyes trailed after him, until it vanished over the treetops. Then she straightened her back, shifted her grip on the shovel, and with the words "Well, it's show time!" entered the dark, uninviting woods.

_To be continued..._


	6. Vyrdahlia

**Vyrdahlia**

_Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Coraline and friends belong to Neil Gaiman and LAIKA studios._

"You know, if it's an ambush, it's not a very good one," Coraline pensively exclaimed, as she and Cat stood before a deep, albeit a relatively narrow, ravine. The crevasse's sides were covered in small shrubs with thorny branches and yellow flowers that emitted a rather acrid smell, and there was no bridge or any other link or crossing point from one side of the ravine to the other. "I mean, according to the spider's instructions, we're supposed to cross the bridge here, and-"

"Oh dear, oh dear, now why would you want to cross?" another voice spoke-up before Cat could.

Slowly, the other two turned around and came face to face with a little back-bent old woman who was leaning heavily on her cane, and was dressed in some sort of green leafy and grassy clothing.

"Hello," Coraline spoke-up first, already somewhat suspicious. "I and my friend here are searching for the Lady of Summer, and a spider told us that we had to cross this place to eventually get to her."

"Oh dear me, dear," the old woman cackled lightly, "that no-good skitterhaunt must've decided to play a nasty trick on you – since it couldn't scare you first."

"Really?" Coraline still was not convinced.

"Oh yes, my dear. That is what skitterhaunts do – do nasty things to people. You're just lucky that you had to deal with a simple case of misdirection instead, and that I was in the neighbourhood."

"Right," Coraline nodded sagely. "And we're sorry, but you are-?"

"Oh dear, I forgot to introduce myself! I am the guardian of this ravine!"

"Oh! You mean like Ashira is a guardian of the doorway?"

"Yes, exactly!" the old woman spoke.

"And so you'll get us across?"

"Of course! But first – I do insist – you must come over to my little place and rest a little: have a little snack and a wee relief from your travels?"

Cat shot Coraline a look that clearly asked: _Just how stupid does she think we are?_ For her part, Coraline could only shrug: not even the Beldam had been so transparent or so fake in her acting, but on the other hand, she really did not want to confront the new hag so soon without getting to know her better first. Consequently, it was better to play along at first, and that was what Coraline decided to do.

"Very well," Coraline nodded primly. "But – just for a little while because we're very worried about our friend."

"Certainly my dear, certainly."

_[Break]_

The first clue that her approach was expected, at least on sort of a subconscious level was made clear when a creature stepped from behind a gnarled tree. It was humanoid in shape, albeit to a point that it was almost skeletal, and its hands ended in three-fingered claws, serrated on their inner edge. Still, it was the face that could be considered the most disturbing feature – it was so normal, humane-looking, and almost handsome... that the contrast with the missing eyes and teeth was only made starkier.

"Holt!" the creature spoke in a breezy voice. "Who goes there?"

"Your superior, wretch!" the Beldam replied promptly without breaking stride: she was on a schedule, and every minute counted. "Now keep out of my way, lest you be punished both by me and your mistress!"

"You must not pass!" the creature insisted, as it began to stalk the Beldam, its' claws preparing to strike – and indeed, the Beldam did stop, as she suddenly noticed the movement underneath the forest litter underfoot: it was as if something was hiding beneath all the fallen needles, branches and cones.

"You must not pass!" Vyrdahlia's guard continued to insist, as it prepared to grab the Beldam with its claws – however, the Beldam had claws of her own, with which she seized her pursuer and flung it onto the moving pile of forest litter. Immediately the latter was flung aside, as the prone being became enveloped in piles of translucent sludge.

"That's nice," the Beldam noted with obvious distaste, as she walked away from the struggle of the two woodland guardians. "I see that aunt Vyrdahlia has practicality if anything after all!"

_[Break]_

When Coraline and Cat saw the humble house of their new friend...Coraline was again overcome by stereotypiness of it all: the place was a classical witch's house, made out of... here Coraline frowned:

"I am sorry," she said politely, as her instincts switched onto a high alert, "but from what did you make your house? It is just so...lovely!"

"Oh my dear, I didn't make it – the trees made it for me! I have a green thumb when it comes to plants, you know?"

"Really? Well, I am still very impressed!"

"Oh no, my dear, that's nothing! If you want, I can teach you how it can be done instead!"

_Thank you, Mrs. Obvious. Can your disguise be even _less_ convincing?_ "Ma'am, you forget – we're in a hurry to find our friend – and a few other people around here."

"Why, so you do," the old woman suddenly agreed, flashing a small smile – and somehow Coraline got the idea that it was not a nice smile at all. "Well then, let me get you a bite to eat and you'll be on your way!"

_There is something very wrong with that idea, but I cannot remember what,_ Coraline replied with a start and was about to flatly refuse the old woman's invitation, when she realized that she was actually in the house already, and so was Cat, whose fur was standing on end, and who didn't look too happy at all. The old woman, however, was not there at all, but rather in an adjoining room, from which some kitchen-like sounds seemed to emerge.

"I think we should try to leave while she's busy," Coraline told her friend.

"I think that's going to be much harder than it looks, because the door is now to your left, and it doesn't seem to be leading out of here," Cat muttered back.

"Leaving? So soon? But I got you fresh strawberries with oatmeal!" the old woman was back with a bowl of something that did smell good, but by now Coraline's patience was at an end.

"Look," she said, still trying to be polite, "I know what you are, all right? So, why don't you stop pretending and gloating at us on the sly?"

The old woman put down the bowl, looking cannily at Coraline with her eyes, which twinkled in a nasty sort of way. "Oh really?" she said in a voice that too bordered on nasty without actually being so. "And what am I, then? Come on, girl, answer briskly!"

"I think that you're one of the Beldam's aunts, and your name is Vyrdahlia, for Trillobia's dead," Coraline replied briskly.

In reply, the old woman laughed – and it was a laugh worthy of a rat. She straightened, and grew, reaching the height of Coraline's own mother (not her _other_ mother), bursting out of clothes, her skin turning green, her teeth – rotten yellow, and her eyes and hair took on the colours of flame.

"Very good," the Beldam's aunt said, looking down at Coraline who has been glaring defiantly back at her. "Very good, but not that good: you see, I am not 'the Beldam's' aunt – I am her _other_ aunt. Let's talk."

_[Break]_

As far as the Beldam knew, all members of her 'other family' had their pet peeves. In case of her mother is was the hidden claustrophobia thing; late aunt Trillobia fancied herself to being the new incarnation of the Lernean Hydra; and aunt Vyrdahlia had a thing for plants and similar mindless beings. (As for her other aunt, Terraxia, she did not even want to think before it would be necessary.) Therefore, when a moss-covered pile of deadfall suddenly stood up on a pair of stocky, splayed feet and reached out with six tentacles towards her, she did not break her stride, but just took off her sunhat and put it on the mobile plant.

Vyrdahlia's mosslords, as far as plants went, were very intelligent, especially for plant servitors from the Unseelie court. Still, they were plants, and as such, their intelligence was limited to certain ways. Having a sunhat put onto one of their number by their mistress's relative, was beyond these limits in several ways. Consequently, it stopped trying to reach the Beldam with its tentacles and instead just stood still, as it tried to figure out what has happened. And as it did that, the Beldam walked on, unbreaking her stride, as she was determined to make it on time and save her daughter.

(All around her, the sound of fighting between the oozing mulchers and Vyrdahlia's fey servitors was breaking out in stroves.)

_[Break]_

"I am listening," Coraline said flatly. "What do you want to tell me?"

"Let's see," the green-skinned hag said calmly. "Some time ago you had encounter with Christabell, haven't you?"

"Yes," Coraline nodded, still wary. "What of it?"

"It means that you may have a rather skewed view of me and my elder sister as well," Vyrdahlia smiled, as if she knew a joke and Coraline did not. "You think that we are nothing but shadows, bogey-men to fear when you're little and to laugh at when you're older. Well, we are not. We're quite real and now you're in our world."

Coraline opened her mouth to ask the green-skinned hag about a point to her ramblings, but apparently, it was just the opening Vyrdahlia was waiting for: she jumped forwards, jamming a fistful of berries (or whatever else) into Coraline's mouth before slamming it shut.

Naturally, Coraline began to struggle, but her opponent's gnarled claws had a lot of strength in them, and currently this strength was used to keep Coraline's mouth shut and her body stationary in one spot.

"Now," the green-skinned hag whispered into Coraline's ear as the young girl began to choke on whatever food was in her mouth. "You will join me and my sister to punish that other impudent part-human brat, or you will join the others who defy me as my furniture!"

With her mind slipping into unconsciousness due to lack of oxygen – the pressure of those gnarled claws on her mouth and base of neck was surprisingly strong – Coraline briefly became curious about what happened to Cat, but then –

"My dearest auntie, I regret to inform you that my daughter's visit to you is up. Please step away and let us leave in peace."

Of all the people, it was the obviously alive Beldam.

_To be continued..._


	7. Trouble Deepens

**Trouble deepens**

_Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Coraline and friends belong to Neil Gaiman and LAIKA studios._

"My _dearest_ auntie, I regret to inform you that my daughter's visit to you is up. Please step away and let us leave in peace."

Of all the people, it was the obviously alive Beldam... and that was Coraline's last coherent thought for a while, as Vyrdahlia flung her away, whirling to confront her errant 'niece'.

_[Break]_

For several long moments, Christabell and Vyrdahlia silently observed each other. Vyrdahlia's hair was rising up, and the flame in her eyes was glowing brighter by the second; Christabell's black button eyes were emotionless, but her grip on the shovel was almost unbreakable. "Christabell. What are you doing here?" the elder hag growled.

"Oh, nothing – just to collect my daughter and leave."

"And what's that on your forehead?"

"Exactly what it looks like."

On the floor, shadows and flames flickered for dominance; though neither the light of the sun nor the moon nor the stars could reach into Vyrdahlia's dwelling, the green-skinned hag carried her own internal flame, and now she bringing it out-

"Whee-eee – not on my watch!"

The tiny screech owl burst through the doorway, and grabbed Vyrdahlia's left ear with all of its talons and its beak. Though it was hardly bigger than a starling, it obvious hurt, as Vyrdahlia whirled around, letting her flames miss by a long shot.

As Vyrdahlia whirled around, clawing for the fast flying bird, Christabell briskly walked up to her and swung the shovel – flat side, not the edge – as her aunt's backside. It was not a blow at her full strength, but considering that Vyrdahlia already was unbalanced, this blow knocked Vyrdahlia off her feet and made her skid across the room.

"Now then, aunt, let us go in peace and maybe I will spare you," Christabell said conversationally, as the elder hag got to her feet. "How does that sound? Probably better than what you'd offer me."

Slowly, Vyrdahlia got on her feet, and by now her originally ember-like eyes were nothing more than two tongues of flaming, albeit outclassed by the third – formerly her hair.

Not that such manifestation of power did not cost the green-skinned hag: her initially gaunt frame was growing skeletal, and the sickly bright greenness of her skin was darkening as well. However, this state of affairs seemed to bother Vyrdahlia not at all, as she grew in height ever as she decreased in width.

"You little ex-human puppet," she growled as Christabell. "Do you really think that you can use your untrained air to defeat my fire?!"

"Let me and my daughter go in peace, and I'll let you live," the latter replied, even as she shifted the shovel to use it as a slicing, rather than a bludgeoning, weapon. "Or whatever it is that you call your state of existence."

"Silly girl," Vyrdahlia bent over her opponent, flames caressing her skin-covered skull and smoke coming out of her nostrils. "Do you really think that you can bluff me with that fake weapon? This is not cold iron otherwise you wouldn't be able to use it yourself, and I shall burn you-" Vyrdahlia froze, as Christabell's shovel slashed through her neck, severing the flaming head off the shoulders – and then she collapsed.

Then Christabell followed suit, falling straight onto her own backside, and releasing her shovel in the process.

_[Break]_

For a few moments, there was no movement in late Vyrdahlia's house, as no one cared or even could move around. Then, however, Coraline realized that she was again lying prone on her side, albeit this time next to a puddle of her own vomit, and decided that she was not that kind of girl. Therefore, she shakily got back on her feet, gulped a big lungful of air and slowly made her way to the Beldam on legs that were shaky only partially because of physical reasons.

However, make it over to the Beldam she did, and then she put – despite her better judgement – a hand onto the other's shoulder. "Are you okay?" she said hesitantly.

Slowly the Beldam turned around. Black button eyes cannot exactly express emotion, but somehow Coraline got the feeling that the other felt only marginally better than she did.

"My dear," the Beldam meanwhile was speaking even as she gently took one of Coraline's hands into her own. "I will be always fine if you're fine – it's as simple as that."

It was at that moment that Coraline's legs gave out – purely from physical reasons, of course – and she fell next to the Beldam. Well, sat down in a falling way, actually.

For the next few moments there was just silence, as the pair waited for each other to say something next, but it was Cat who broke the silence first, as he jumped onto Coraline's lap and began to lick himself in an embarrassed (for him, anyways) way. Eventually, however – between licks – he decided to speak:

"So, for a while here, we thought that you were dead, you know?"

"Oh? And why did you think that?" There were some of the old notes in the Beldam's voice, and Coraline was relieved – at least something could start to make sense in this world, hopefully. Unfortunately, what the Beldam said was also said in a form of a question, and that required an answer.

"I, uh, saw it in the mirror – your family's visit," she muttered. "I saw them blast you with a spell and thought that you died."

"My dear," the Beldam smiled with just a tiny bit of pride in it, "your dear old mother was just a tad too smart for her family, and she isn't going to die with such a whimper just yet. No, I intend to go with a bang – so personally, I would also prefer to live a long, long life as a mother and grandmother instead."

Coraline felt her cheeks slowly turn red and her body temperature to rise. "You're not my mother," she said, feeling her old fire returning as well.

"My dear, I have saved you from Vyrdahlia, who would have been not so understanding, nor gentle, nor fair to you. On the other hand, your intelligence is quick and your heart is pure and honourable. I am rather sure that you are at something of a disadvantage to deny me now of anything."

Coraline slumped, almost unconsciously, and looked back at the Beldam, who was just staring at her with those black button eyes of hers. "Look," she slowly said. "You, you..."

"My dear, I promise to be a good mother," the Beldam said quietly, carefully caressing Coraline's hair, and this time there was no magic stone to keep her away. "And I promise not to sew any buttons into your eyes until you're ready to."

And from the tone of her voice, from the expression on the rest of her face away from the button eyes, Coraline knew that it was so...and her heart literally shivered from fear. She could not really think of any way of outmanoeuvring the Beldam straight away, and she was indebted to her: in some ways she was the lesser evil than her aunt – but greater in other ways. Then there was Wybie.

Wybie... the memory of her human friend reminded Coraline that there was at least one other aspect to this whole mess.

"Look," she said with firmness that was not there moments before. "You like making deals and such, right?"

"Yes – what of it?" the Beldam said, with curiosity in her voice.

"Let's make a deal."

"Oh? What kind of a deal?"

"I will submit to you and be your daughter if you help me rescue Wybie. A gahonga had lured him here and I need to rescue him before something worse happens to him."

"My dear girl," the Beldam said in a voice that reminded Coraline of her _real_ mother whenever Coraline did something that Mrs. Jones would consider a foolish mistake. "You told me before that you saw my interaction with Vyrdahlia and others through the mirror. Tell me, do you remember anything or anyone exactly from back then?"

"Well, I remember that your name is Christabell," Coraline said slowly.

"Yes. It is," the Beldam said in a new voice, one that Coraline had never heard her use before. "Christabell de Veux of the castle Treyermaine, actually. Anything or anyone else?"

_Anything or anyone else... _"You mean the other hag – the black-skinned giantess."

"Terraxia. Exactly."

_[Break]_

There was a pause, as Coraline digested what she had heard.

"Terraxia. She has Wybie?"

"Yes."

"But why? Does she also look for a child?"

"No, my dear. Terraxia, like her dead sisters, is interested only in taste of human flesh, nothing more. In fact, the only reason why she would not eat... Wybie is because she wants to lure you to her as well."

"And you? Where do you fit in?"

"She thinks that I will bow to her and call her my leader. She is wrong. I am nothing like her! Nothing!"

"Calm down, calm down!" Coraline hurriedly said. "I- I believe you, really!"

"Fine. My basic line is that maybe it is time for you to cut your losses and leave. I will not even try to stop you from going back-"

"No," Coraline shook her head. "I am already indebted to you, and Wybie is my friend. I am not bowing down and leaving!"

"My dear, Terraxia can kill you with one hand tied behind her back, to use your lingo-"

"Perhaps," Coraline nodded, remembering Terraxia from the scene in the Bel- Christabell's house. Even in a vague way, the giantess may have been the most terrifying of the three, and Coraline was quite sure that she could kill her, just as Vyrdahlia had been. However,

"As my dad says, sometimes it's better to be the dead lion rather than a live coward," Coraline said slowly, persuading herself as much as the others, "and besides may be I too would rather go out with a bang!" She paused. "The whole kids and grandkids thing though – let's not go there, please!"

"Fine," the Bel- Christabell exhaled heavily. "It seems that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Let us go and confront Terraxia together. Maybe something will come out of it."

For some reason that she did not want to think about, Coraline began to feel not unlike after that ill-fated adventure with wasps. However, she tried to think about something else.

"Um, how are we going to get there anyways? The spider spoke about a bridge, and-" Coraline's voice trailed away: all around them Vyrdahlia's house was deteriorating.

"With her gone, her magic follows suit," Christabell explained calmly, "including the obscuring illusion – ah, there we are!"

Across the ravine, a bridge was appearing out of thin air.

"Whee-ee, that's just wow!" the screech owl hooted.

_[Break]_

The bridge was really neat and orderly, and quite exquisite in its' design. Coraline, however, had too much on her mind to be fascinated in that, and rather focused her mind on what lay before her.

It was another forest, broadleaf as opposed to the conifer copse that grew on the other side of the ravine. The leaves in question, however, were so broad, that only occasional shaft of sunlight filtered through; there was no moon- or starlight.

"Nice place – does anyone live here?" Cat muttered; Coraline noticed with surprise that this was probably the first time that he had spoken in a while since their initial encounter with the late Vyrdahlia.

"Probably not, maybe a few averx," Christabell replied calmly. "Terraxia had brought with her several underlings with her – will-o'-wisp and such – and they don't care much for Seelie company."

"So, they'll be here?" Coraline pressed on, even as her interlocutrix stopped and began to look – or rather to sniff around. "What are you doing?"

"Searching for the cottonwood trees – they mark the path between Vyrdahlia's keep and Terraxia's."

"Oh. Is that them, whee-ee?" the screech owl landed on top of Coraline's head, clutching a small leaf in its beak.

"Why, so it is," the Beldam smiled slightly. "Show us the way."

"And can I stay? Can I stay whee-eee?"

"Do you really want to meet Terraxia face-to-face?" the question was asked rather gentle.

"Do you, weee-eee?"

"No, but we have to," Coraline broke in, trying to come to grips with the fact that her other mother now had a talking owl. "That's different."

"Maybe, but I will also come, wee-eee!"

"Isn't it adorable?" the Bel- Christabell said in a voice that suggested that the bird was actually excruciatingly aggravating instead. "Doesn't know what the future will hold, but already wants a piece. Guess it'll have to come."

For some reason Coraline felt as if the subject of that sentence was not the bird but someone else, and from the way the stray sunlight reflected off the older woman's buttons made her suspect that it was actually her, but the screech owl had its own opinions.

"I am in, I am in, weee-eee!" it screeched enthusiastically.

"Yes you are, ow," Coraline spoke up before anybody else could. "Now can we please go so that I could probably recover hearing in that ear along the way?"

"Oh. Sorry."

_[Break]_

Paths, paths, paths... It seemed to Coraline that wherever she walked in this other world, she always encountered some path that she would probably not adhere to for very long. First the silverweed road, next the path that followed the clouds, and now a path outlined by cottonwood trees.

Once again, everything around her was quiet, save for the whispers among the trees. They were seemingly saying something, albeit in a subdued tone, but Coraline could not quite understand what.

Then again, the whole mood of this expedition had become subdued, to put it lightly. Both the other mother nor Cat seemed to be willing to talk, and neither did Coraline herself, actually. Still, any prolonged amounts of silence tended to go against Coraline's character, and so she decided to try to break the silence – at least with the bird – when they walked past the final poplar, and...

...found themselves in a sea of black nothingness. There was no sunlight, nor moonlight, nor light of the stars. There was no horizon, nor any other distinguishing marks. There was nothing, save for the ground under their feet, and even that was felt rather than seen.

For some reason, Coraline figured that that was as good a time as ever to break the silence. "You know, that reminds me of the borders at the end of your old house," she turned to the other mother. "Only here it's black rather than white and... hey, are there lights in the distance?"

"Will-o'-wisps. Don't try to follow them or you'll get drowned alive in a swamp, where millions of small squiggly things will eat you forever and a day."

"Right. And why didn't you tell us about the blackness here?"

"Would it have deterred you?"

"No."

"There you are, then. Question answered!"

Coraline felt something like exasperation rise up in her stomach... but then Cat decided to speak-up.

"Can I just say something?" he asked, still sounding rather subdued.

Coraline began to nod, then remembered that this was no ordinary darkness, and spoke her agreement aloud instead.

"Right, I just wanted to apologize for not being as on top of all things as I should have been," Cat continued, sounding now more embarrassed than subdued. "I guess I might have grown a bit cocky and complacent during my stay with you and Wybie and I should've thought it all better. Instead, I just blundered around with you all across the fairylands, and here we are, only because we got lucky. Coraline, I guess I am penitent of my actions, you know?"

Coraline was not sure what 'penitent' meant, but Cat sounded quiet sorry, so she decided to take it for an apology and treat it accordingly. Then... something happened. A glimmer of dim blue light stretched-out, threadlike, across the black field away from her and the others.

_Have the others seen it, or is it just me?_

"I am sorry too, whee-ee," the screech owl hooted from its perch on top of Coraline's head. "I really should have been more helpful around here, you know? Instead, I just hanged around, doing nothing, as usual. Maybe I should have accepted my cousin's offer and worked at Hogwarts ™ as well, but... I guess I am not cutout even for that. I'm sorry!"

_No, there is a thread of light, and it seems just a bit brighter than before. I think I shall try something out here as well._

"Well, I'm sorry too," Coraline spoke up loudly. "Admittedly, not for cutting your hand with the door, Christabell, but other than that... I do not know. You do not seem evil, just, um, crazier when it comes to motherhood than Brittney Spears. Still, I am sorry for not being the daughter you wanted me to be – and thank you for saving from the hag, Vyrdahlia... What I am trying to say, is that I am sorry that we couldn't be friends, you know?" She paused. "Um, why does it feel like I have suddenly sprouted a tail?"

Now there clearly was a path of blue light starting at their feet, bright enough for everyone to see, bright enough to be reflected in the black button eyes of the other mother, who slowly looked at it, and then at Coraline.

"I guess," she said thickly, clearly struggling with herself, "that I too have regrets – regrets for not being your mother, Coraline, not matter how hard I tried. I guess it is true – no fey magic can ever replace human blood in one's veins. Therefore, I apologize, though I am not sure what do you mean by suggesting that we can friendly with one another. In addition, the tail has grown because, apparently, some of Vyrdahlia's cookery had gone down your throat – and it was not done in good face. You're changing Coraline into a fey changeling as well... which means that even if you won't be my daughter, you might very well become my neighbour!"

The path of bright crystal-blue light became a clear, well-defined path that illuminated their way ahead. No will-o'-wisp was in sight either. Moreover, as for the tail... it was just a tail, covered in fur the colour of Coraline's hair...that had grown longer and thicker and obscured Coraline's ears, which had grown points, rather like Cat's ears.

"Oi, well we'll talk about it later – after we rescue Wybie," Coraline hurriedly said. "Let's go and rescue him first!"

_To be continued..._


	8. Terraxia

**Terraxia**

_Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Coraline and friends belong to Neil Gaiman and the LAIKA studios._

There was no time in the other world, but in the complete absence of light, Coraline felt this feature of the other world at its' keenest.

"So, uh, any more surprises your aunt got in store for us?" she asked the other mother.

"She is my other aunt," the latter's voice was unusually dry, "and that is a different that you understand as keenly as anyone else."

"Other aunt? So, who was the original?"

"I had no original. My other mother wasn't as nice to me as I was to you."

Coraline paused, for once understanding what was not being said clear enough. "Look, I am just trying to shift the mood in this empty dark-"

"We're here!" Cat said unexpectedly, as the empty darkness around them vanished, replaced by the usual atmosphere and the mix of light from the sun, the moon and the stars from the sky. They were back in the other world, not far away from an immense oak tree, and tied to the tree's trunk was a figure that looked a lot like Wybie, albeit very miserable and scared one...

Coraline emitted a cry of emotion and run towards her friend.

"Child, Coraline, wait!" Christabell cried out in vain. "It's Terraxia's trap-"

_[Break]_

Though the other world had no time, the scene before Coraline changed in a moment: before she was running across a clear meadow to her friend, the next, the meadow sprouted a thousand tentacles of woody grass, interweaving them into a net, ready to seize and bind her within.

Coraline just froze, her eyes goggling from the bizarre horror, and then something warm and furry smacked into her leg – and it was Cat.

"Coraline!" the feline exhaled, exhausted from dodging the strands of the hardened grass. "Use cold metal! It's the only thing that will work!"

"Cold metal? Where would I have cold metal- oh!" Coraline grasped the definitely cold and metallic buckle of her trouser belt. Ignoring the thoughts about the inappropriateness of her actions, she pulled the belt out, and began to whip it at the strands of the plant net.

Once...twice...three times Coraline struck, and with each blow a portion of net would fall away and Coraline would be able to move. Then, however, Coraline noticed that her buckle was being rather worn away by the blows as well, which meant that she had to do something else instead.

"Coraline!" Cat was dodging through the bottom area of the net trap, avoiding the strands by shear feline luck. "You got to strike at the main knot!"

"The main knot? What's that?" Coraline exclaimed, as the strands began to tighten around her once again.

"Here!" Cat yelped, as he pointed the paw at a knot of strands especially thick and thorny. "Strike low! Right at the roots!"

"At the roots?" Coraline goggled. As if on response, the net began to re-shape itself, forming not so much a net as a monstrous fist almost ready to smash her into the ground. "It's going to be a low blow!"

"Just do it – please!" Cat yowled as monstrous, misshapen fist began to descend – and that gave Coraline the extra motivation that she needed: she dropped to her knees and swung the buckle of her belt sideways, right at the roots (hopefully).

Then there was a monumental explosion of sound.

_[Break]_

As the dust settled, Coraline became aware that no, she was not blasted all the way to the moon (or the sun or any of the stars), nor has anything or anyone else. Instead, once again, she ended up lying flat on her face in the dust, and again, this time her audience had been increased.

"Jonesy!" Wybie sounded genuinely thrilled to see her, and that almost made up her embarrassing position. "You're here! As I knew you would!"

Coraline got up, silently praying for her pants not to fold down, and blew some more dust from her nose. "Yeah, Lovat, it is I. Now I think we should get out of here as quickly as we can, before-"

Something slammed into the ground – a bare foot with thick calluses on her sole, and with thick, armour-like claws for nails. Skin as black as coal underground completed the picture.

"I don't know who you are, little meat-puppet," Terraxia bellowed as she seemed to block out light by her mere presence, "but for touching my property you will pay!"

"Um," Coraline instinctively looked at the remains of her belt that she had held onto, but the few bits of burned leather probably would not intimidate a fly, let alone someone like Terraxia.

"Excuse me," Coraline realized that it was her other mother, Christabell, speaking from behind the giant hag. "But there's one last thing left to do."

"What?" Terraxia snarled, as she whirled around... and got hit in the face with the sack that Christabell had been carrying around with her for a while now, which contained two or three round objects of approximately middle size. And as the sack connected with Terraxia's face, there was an explosion, flinging the smaller female back, landing her right on her rear end.

Terraxia, however, staggered back as well, and Coraline was surprised to see that the giantess was actually hurt: coal-black skin and flesh was falling off her face in flakes of dirt, revealing her copper-green teeth set in jaws made of petrified bone. However, in her eyes – initially pits of mere darkness – there was a new look, a new glint, and it was utterly deadly.

"This trick will aid you not, little one," Terraxia rumbled, even as some more of her essence fell off her cheek- and jawbones. "I will kill you, and your new cohorts, and then I-"

"Excuse me," spoke a new voice, as gentle as a breeze among tree leaves, but that gentleness was deceptive: Coraline watched with trepidation, as another giantess appeared on the scene and strode straight towards the eldest hag.

Then, Coraline frowned in thought: the newcomer had skin the colour of fresh wood, and leaves in place of hair, but that was all, Ashira at the gate at least had real hair to obscure all the inappropriate – or appropriate – bits, but this one... this one didn't even had any bits to obscure, it wasn't human at all, just a puppet made out of wood.

Well, as the newcomer ignored Terraxia's claws and just lifted the giant hag off the ground and into the air, not 'just a puppet' at all but something far greater. "In the name of Nemesis, Righteous Retribution, I bind thee, Terraxia, as you had bind me, and bound you shall stay, as I have stayed, till metal that's cold and blood that is hot shall free you!" Coraline heard her new ally speak in the same deceptively gentle voice.

In reply, Terraxia released a yowl that sounded like nothing human at all; rather, it was a bestial amplification of an avalanche deep in the mountains, the sound of rocks breaking against each other, and nothing more. Her shape too became quite inhuman: a four-legged beast with claws and fangs like those of a sabre-tooth cat, albeit green with poison and disease.

Yet...all of these things had helped her not: the rays from the stars above had formed ropes and nooses that ensnared Terraxia's flailing limbs and pulled her up, up and away into the sky, until she vanished from sight.

Then Terraxia's victor turned around, and her eyes were of a luminous green colour that Coraline found rather disturbing. "And who are you, good people?" the victor said gently.

"Everyone," Christabell's voice sounded shaky, "this is Quera, the paragon duchess of the dryads and other tree spirits."

"How do you do?" Coraline got up and mechanically tried to curtsy, forgetting that she currently wore pants without a belt. Naturally, this resulted in the latter falling down.

"Hey, Jonesy, I can see your underpants!" Wybie exclaimed, choking down giggles, "and are those green-"

Instinctively, Coraline kicked backwards, aiming for Wybie's leg to shut him up. Only, the tangled-up-around-her-ankles pants caused her to miss, hitting Wybie right in the –

Wybie's giggles died out abruptly and completely, as the unlucky boy fell down in the shape of the embryo. To make matters worse, this action made Coraline lose her balance, and she fell back on her face for the fourth time since her kitchen accident, her tail curling upwards into the air like a flag.

_[Break]_

"You know, they're not usually like that," through the clouds of her humiliation Coraline heard Cat speak. "It's just that currently they're not at their best, it seems."

"Apparently so," the voice of the duchess of the dryads was still gentle, as she lifted the still crouching Wybie into the air and breathed at his voice. Immediately, Wybie's whimpers stopped:

"Why, the pain is gone!"

"Glad to hear it," the dryad smiled, as she helped Coraline back on her feet as well. With a gesture from her other hand, a moderately thick strip of bark peeled off the oak and wove itself into a cord, which then tied itself around Coraline's pants, securing them around her waist.

"Thank you," Coraline smiled in relief. "Sorry about all of this."

"You have nothing to be sorry, child, after all, it is only because of you that the power of the covey is broken for a long, long time."

"Perhaps, but we still need to visit the Lady of Summer to do something about her tail," Cat spoke up from his vantage position.

"What about her tail? It's real cute," the dryad said cheerfully.

"But nonetheless we must be going," Cat said firmly.

"Very well. You know how to go there?"

"Not anymore," Coraline shook her head sadly. "We got turned around too many times by now."

"Well, then, take a good look at my oak. See its' two shadows – one from sunlight, the other from the light of the moon. You, consequently, follow the moonlight shadow until you have reached a juniper bush. In addition, from there you will find a path that will lead you to the poppy field of the P'oh. There, he'll show you the path to her ladyship."

"Thank you," Coraline nodded respectfully.

"No, thank _you_ – all of you," the paragon duchess replied turning around to look straight at Christabell. "Including you, madam. Truly, it was a pleasure of seeing how you can put the Unseelie into a human, but you couldn't take the human from Unseelie, mmm?"

"No," Christabell nodded, "you cannot. And thank you once again for the directions."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Cat spoke up. "Let's go, already!"

And away they went.

_To be continued..._


	9. The Journey Onwards

**The journey onwards**

_Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Coraline and friends belong to Neil Gaiman and to LAIKA studios._

Once again, Coraline was walking a path of the other world; once again, her travelling company had increased; and once again, the path that she was walking was not like what she would have expected – the path from the shadow of the moon! ...And then there was yet another thing:

"Is it just me, or has none of us gotten tired from all this walking?" she asked Cat, as he feline friend was busily chasing on patch of moonlight after another, pointedly ignoring the patches of sunlight instead.

"Well, according to our friend here," Cat was getting back into good spirits – or at least what passed for good spirits for him – "and by our friend I meant Wybie Lovat, speed is related to distance."

"No," Wybie stopped looking around at the various birds that flittered all around the oak grove and turned to his friends for once. "Velocity of things is speed times distance!" He paused. "And since when do you talk?"

"Oh, he always talks whenever we're in the other world," Coraline said wryly, "and have you noticed it only now?"

"Well, I had a lot of things to think about, starting with the oak lady," Wybie said a trifle defensively, "and besides, you have kicked me in a very sensitive area! I didn't exactly notice our cat starting to talk, you know!"

"Well, you noticed now!"

"Yes! Yes I have," Wybie said in a manly voice and paused. "Um, what are we fighting about again?"

"I think I asked Cat why we haven't gotten tired-"

"Because there is no time here – it cannot affect your bodies with something like physical fatigue that you have mentioned," Christabell spoke-up suddenly in a curiously detached tone.

"Oh. So, you mean if, let us say, we wander here for long enough-"

"Wybie," Cat spoke up before anyone else could, "don't forget that time is in full control back on the other side of door. We wander here long enough and we won't have any place to go home to – literally!" He paused. "Well, maybe you won't. Cats – or owls, I suppose – don't really need homes, and the ladies are already at home, so to speak."

"What?" Wybie went from amazed (in a good way) to horrified in an eye blink. "But Coraline is, Coraline is-"

Coraline could not help herself – she wiggled her new tail in Wybie's direction. "Hello, Wybie! Have you missed this as well?! I cannot help but remember that you stared in that direction a very short while ago."

Wybie turned red, horror forgotten in face of mortifying humiliation. "Well, I-I was under the influence of the dryad duchess or whoever! I mean, have you seen her? She's amazing!"

"Wybie, she's a living – no. She's a human tree or a tree in a human shape or something like that."

"No, she is not."

"Coraline," Christabell said in the same curiously detached voice, "your friend, unlike you, still has human eyes. He cannot see the locals for what they truly are, and the gahonga's initial charm did not help matters either."

"The ga- what now? Are you talking about the girl that brought me here?"

"Wheee-eee! Wheee-eee! Foolish human, talks about it as if it had been a girl!"

"Hah?" Wybie blinked, as did Coraline.

"The gahonga belong to the branch of fey that can exchange their gender from male to female just like you could exchange hats or shoes," Christabell explained. "They have no sex like people or even the tree spirits do."

Wybie's face changed expressions again, this time into that of deep revulsion. "You mean I was- she was an 'it'? Gross!"

"Probably so," Christabell nodded, "very likely so."

"Fine, but back to Coraline – what had _happened_ to her?"

"It was the other hag, Vyrdahlia," Coraline explained before anyone else could. "She fed me some of the local berries to make a part of the other world however."

"More precisely, she planned to turn Coraline into an Unseelie hag like herself," Cat added. "Fortunately, our other friend came just in time and killed the hag with a shovel, thus making Coraline into a free spirit once more."

"Oh, well thanks," Wybie turned to Christabell, then paused. "Um, wasn't she evil the last time we talked, Jonesy?"

"She isn't," Coraline shook her head, becoming aware along the way that her hair had become longer and shinier than it has ever been before. "She may have been confused and forced to play a role in this world, but I don't think she is even that anymore."

At that moment, Christabell abruptly stopped and whirled around, her face becoming an unnaturally pale shade of white. "Why are you saying this?" she exclaimed, her voice barely more than a hissing whisper. "Why are you saying those things about me? You don't have to – you don't need me anymore!" The last sentence was a screech almost despite Christabell's will. "You don't have to keep me around!"

"Look," Coraline moved forwards, grabbing Christabell's hand – the same hand that she had once cut off with a door, seemingly so long ago. "Nowadays, you're my friend, and people do not discard friends like artificial puppets so easily. People are friends with each other because they want to, not because they need to – well, not only because they need to. And besides," Coraline exclaimed, her own face flushed from embarrassment, "I still do owe you for your rescuing me from Vyrdahlia and her twisted plots – she was going to make me into furniture, I think. Christabell, you _are_ a decent and honourable person in your heart – why do you keep on thinking this?"

"Because she was so used to using her head alone," Cat said wryly, startling the others, "and so she still won't use her heart, albeit only due to the force of habit, for you gave it such a jumpstart, that it won't be denied for much longer!"

Black button eyes cannot form emotions, but the two patches of crimson on Christabell's cheeks commented on Cat's question clearly enough. "Coraline, child," Christabell said softly, putting her arm on Coraline's shoulder, "I am afraid, perhaps even more so when I was about to smash the skulls of my other mother and her cohorts into Terraxia's face – for back then I knew what I was up against. Now, I am confronted with something that I know totally not, and that's why it is so terrifying to me – but for your sake I will be brave."

_That is so __girly__,_ Wybie Lovat thought, as he saw the pair shake hands in a friendly way, but he kept quiet.

After all, a remark like that could always get him kicked in his unmentionables again.

_[Break]_

"Well, we're here!" Cat suddenly exclaimed, as everyone else slowly stopped paying attention as where they were going, and were just concerned in going in an appropriate direction, the appropriate direction here being a small, clear-cut path that had led away from a juniper bush that the small, but grown, group had found shortly after exiting the oak grove. From then on it was just an easy walk, following the clouds, really, as the quintet found themselves standing before the most amazing any of them (except possibly for Cat) have seen.

The field was covered in poppies, the bigger than any of their counterparts from the human world. The ones on the left were red, red as blood in arteries, with a darker, almost black, design at the base of their petals. The ones of the right were identical to them, save for their colour, which was as white as the first snow of winter. However, whether right or left, white or red, all of those poppies smelled amazingly that the whole group just stood there briefly, exhaling a heartfelt "Aaah".

Of course, Wybie Lovat, being who he was, was also the first to break the silence. "Girls," he said slowly, "I think we got company – you better take a look."

They took – and stared. "Isn't that Winnie-Pooh?" Coraline finally exclaimed.

"I'm P'oh, not Winnie," the small teddy-bear-like creature dressed in red clothing said proudly, "and I am in charge of the Poppy Gardens of Happiness!"

"Really? How's that works – ow!" Wybie asked, even as Coraline kicked him in the shin.

P'oh's little eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion.

"And who are you to ask that? Why are you here to begin with?"

"The duchess-paragon of the dryads told us that you will give us the way to the Lady of Summer," Christabell spoke quietly.

"She did? She spoke to you? Then that sprite, Splanxty, spoke truth! The Unseelie covey is gone from our lands!"

"Yes," apparently it was Cat's turn to speak. "The greatest hag of them all, Terraxia, is now bound just like the duchess herself has been bound, and the rest of them are gone, their skulls smashed against Terraxia's rock-hard face."

"Yes!" P'oh jumped in the air enthusiastically, "the balance has been restored! And," he added, calming down somewhat, "I do owe Splanxty an apology, even though it's her raccoon friends who have started this feud, by eating my precious poppies!"

"Why?" Wybie had to ask.

"To achieve perfect happiness by eating their seeds, of course! Don't you know anything?" P'oh said scornfully.

"I think I might have heard something about poppies bringing people happiness," Wybie said carefully, "but raccoons – not so much."

"Especially giant ones," Coraline could not resist by adding.

"My poppies bring happiness to everyone, regardless of their species or their size," the tiny fairy said haughtily, "but that is beside the point. I want you to apologize to that sprite on my behalf in exchange for the path to the Lady of Summer - that is all."

"Well, fair enough, but what we are really on a schedule here," Cat said firmly. "Where can we find Splanxty _and_ stay on the path to her ladyship?"

"Ah, that's easy," P'oh said, smiling slightly. "You'll find them at the mountain well on top of the White Mountain."

"And where is that?"

"Right there," P'oh pointed them in the direction of the clouds.

"I don't see it," Wybie admitted finally, "just... clouds!"

"Well, I do," Coraline also admitted, "but isn't it a bit far away from here?"

"Well then, you better start walking," P'oh shrugged, even as he handed out five dry heads of poppy, each full of seeds.

"But won't it take too long-" Wybie blinked, as he remembered that in this, other world there was no time at all, and thus, a trip, no matter how long geographically won't take any time at all.

"So, what are we to do with them?" Cat muttered suspiciously, even as they all examined their new gifts.

"Oh, just get there," P'oh replied, even as he vanished back among his poppies. "Splanxty and the rest of the sprites will take it on from there."

"Then what are we waiting for, people? Let's go!"


	10. The Well on the Mountain

**The Well on the Mountain**

_Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Coraline and her friends belong to Neil Gaiman and to LAIKA studios._

There was a pause as Coraline looked at Wybie as if he had gone mad. "Excuse me," she turned to him, "but I think it's a bit far to 'just start walking', Wybourne."

"You don't get it, though she thought about it, didn't she?" Wybie carefully asked Christabell, aware that she was studying in a rather intense, uncomfortable way.

"Yes, she did," Christabell sighed sadly. "Come on, child, we know your intelligence is quick – you have practically figured it out, haven't you?"

Now it was Coraline's turn once again to blush from embarrassment, as she doubted that she had 'figured it out', contrary to what others may think. And, to hide that embarrassment, she began to walk in the direction of the mountain instead, aware that the others were coming along (or trotting along in case of Cat) as well. This surprised Coraline to such an extent (she did not consider herself to be the leader of their little expedition at all) that she kept quiet, and consequently—

_[Break]_

...she was most surprised when the scenery changed, from the path through the poppy gardens to a mountainside, high above the grounds as well.

"Thanks for proving my point, Jonesy," Wybie spoke from his position next to her. "Since there is no time here, measuring any distances chronologically is meaningless. How's that for science, Jonesy?"

"Lovat, you're standing on my new tail!" Coraline managed to wheeze as she began to pull out the latter from underneath Wybie's feet.

Wybie jumped away so suddenly that he would've lost his balance and rolled down the mountain, if it hadn't been overgrown by flowering bird cherry bushes that smelled so sweet, that Coraline almost imagined herself and others to be swimming through a sea of jam instead. The fact that they had to remove Wybie from one of these shrubs did do much to destroy that fantasy, especially since Wybie wouldn't stop from being contrite in his own way:

"Can't you keep it curled up or something?" he asked in a huff, even as he shook twigs and leaves from his clothes. "Of course, I'm just curious."

"No, I can't," Coraline said crossly, "Not consciously, anyways."

"She's an uldra, wee-ee," the screech-owl echoed, "and ulrdas curl their tails only when they're nervous, wee-eee!"

"Um, right," Coraline said, blushing again – she didn't really care to talk about her tail, especially to Wybie, who actually began this whole situation by foolishly following the now-gone gahonga and... "How about we search for the sprites' well now?"

"And what do you want from the sprites' well?" a giant raccoon, maybe as big as a horse, popped out of the shrubbery, its' eyes somewhat suspicious.

"P'oh sent us to apologize, weee-ee," the screech-owl explained, as it peeked from behind Coraline's shoulder.

"Yes, what it said," Coraline added crossly, rubbing her ear: for such a small bird, the screech-owl was certainly real loud.

The raccoon carefully sniffed the air, and then its' masked muzzle split into a smile. "And I can smell that it sent gifts of contrition with you as well! That certainly changes everything!"

"I say," Cat said calmly. "The hags are dead, save for Terraxia, who's been bound for good!"

The raccoon, however, was not listening to them any longer: instead, it was already crushing through the shrubbery, its stripped tail wagging almost as excitedly, as a dog's.

"Splanxty," it was calling out, "Splanxty! Our poppies are here!"

"And that's what I don't like about them," Cat added, as they followed the larger animal further up the mountain. "They're all just too single-minded by far!"

_[Break]_

However, single-minded or not, Coney the giant raccoon did the small group a great favour, as its' great mass simply smashed through the flowering shrubs – a process that the others would not have been able to do so easily...

For a while, Coney just strode on as a giant raccoon on a mission should, but then he stopped. "Splanxty," it was calling out once more, "Splanxty! Our poppies are here!"

And then it became a visible: a small well made from wooden logs, with the sound of water splashing deep within-

-or not so deep, as a within moments, a tiny creature, resembling a small, thin child dressed in robes of ever-flowing water, popped out of the well.

It was Splanxty. "Did you say poppies, Coney?" the tiny fey excitedly chattered as it hopped up and down over the side of the well.

"Yes I have," the giant raccoon nodded its shaggy head. "Those kind people brought them over as P'oh's apology – in exchange for the path to the Lady of Summer."

"The Lady of Summer, you say? Certainly!" Splanxty sounded almost giddy as the tiny fey jumped and down the side of the well. "Just give me the poppies and we'll be on our way!"

"Sure, I guess," Coraline said carefully, as she pulled out the bag with dry poppy heads in the direction of the tiny creature.

Immediately, the giant raccoon grabbed it instead and jumped with them into the well, followed by Splanxty as well.

A rapidly vanishing "Wheee!" and a distant splash was all that remained of the pair within moments.

A pause followed to feel the space after the pair just as quickly as the latter had left, but unlike them, it was obvious that it wasn't going anywhere soon.

Coraline had the good grace to be embarrassed. "Oops," she said miserably, "and I'm sorry – they've seemed so nice back when Cat and I met them under a honeysuckle bush!"

"My dear, they're sprites, and just because these ones are members of the Seelie, doesn't mean that they are anymore trustworthy or predictable than their Unseelie cousins."

"Why is that?"

"Because the locals here are spirits – spirits of nature, of plants and animals and of inorganic things. Very few creatures – like your feline familiar – are exactly what they appear to be or follow the path of human thinking."

"What about you?" Wybie spoke-up suddenly. "For all of your buttons you seem to follow human thinking well enough."

"That's because she's a changeling," Cat shrugged, as Christabell glared at him – if black button eyes could glare, of course. "Aren't you?"

"Yes," the latter replied, if somewhat reluctantly. "As I have said before, my father was a knight in the employ of the good king Richard, called by some the lion-hearted."

"Really?" Wybie looked with clear amazement in his eyes. "But that was so long ago! You're, what-"

"She had lived here, where is no time, and thus the human standard to do not matter," Cat explained with a groan. "Try to use your memory for a change!"

Wybie blushed from irritation, and would have had a heated argument with the feline then and there, but Christabell just glared at him with her button eyes, and Wybie remembered what they were doing instead.

"Anyways," Christabell continued, ignoring the little fracas as if it did not happen, "my father was a knight of King Richard, lord of castle Treyermaine. Well," she paused, looking slightly embarrassed, "it was more of a tower, really."

"And your mother? Your human mother, that is," Coraline said quietly.

"My human mother was gone by the time I was born," Christabell's tone killed all the discussion on that subject almost dead, "and my father never re-married, in no small part because he had a falling-out with the king's brother, prince John the landless. He has made some comments about the royal family... and fell out of their favour. As a consequence, our family prospects suffered, and I-" Christabell trailed away.

"And what happened then?"

"Then? Then, one night, our tower burned, and my other mother rescued me, so to say."

"So to say?"

"Aye, for it was she who rescued me from the tower when it burned," Christabell nodded. "In gratitude I agreed to be adopted by her and to put buttons in place of eyes. Of course, when I learned that it was her, who had orchestrated some key events that led me to become her daughter, I made a deal with the local rats and put my other mother into an early grave. And then, when I caught her trying to get out of it, I put here there again, with the help of shovel. And then," she paused and looked at Coraline with her black button eyes, "I swore that that is not what's going to happen to me at all."

"Well, what was going to happen to you?" Wybie asked, as Coraline groaned.

"I'd die in bed with at least my daughter and possibly several grandkids in attendance," Christabell smiled in a way that made Coraline and Wybie blush and groan and sidle away from her. "Well, it was the best dream when I was your age and expected to be engaged already, if it wasn't for the royal disfavour."

"Right," said Wybie and blinked. "Engaged? Really?"

"And you," Cat added to Wybie, still a bit peeved about their aborted argument earlier, "would have already be aiding your father, whether in a field, or in a shop, or at a crusade."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Wybie said cautiously.

"Neither did living with her," Cat flickered his tail in Christabell's direction.

"But didn't you live with her as well?"

"I am a cat! Human rules aren't written to us!"

"They most certainly are not," spoke yet another voice, and it didn't belong to any of them at all.

_[Break]_

There was a pause as the others stared at the tall figure with the same wood-coloured skin as the duchess of the dryads had, and who had green leaves and white flowers of bird cherry for hair. "Are you a dryad?" Coraline finally asked, somehow suspecting that she wasn't.

"Aye, that I am – Yassa of the bird cherries," the latter noded.

Coraline frowned: for some reason she couldn't believe the newcomer, and yet she sensed no danger from her, either. "So, why are you here?" she asked cautiously, no longer sure what to expect since Splanxty's abrupt departure.

"Splanxty the sprite and his kin and companions have asked me to take you to her ladyship," Yassa said calmly, "since they themselves are not quite themselves."

"Must be some poppies," Wybie said carefully not looking at the very unclosed tree spirit.

"Aye, P'oh knows gardening very well. Nonetheless, I shall take you to her ladyship as easily as they would've, but," Yassa hesitated, "are you sure that that's what you want?"

"What do you mean?" Coraline's voice came out a bit high and tense. "We want to get back to our place, and I, in particular, want to be human once again." Her tail twitched angrily, as did her ears (to Coraline's surprise).

"But why?" Yassa seemed to be genuinely mystified. "You'll make a fine uldra, Coraline Jones. The local clan will easily accept you, and you'll live a much longer and much better life than if you were a human. If you want, we kind find places for your friends here to live as well – not that they don't belong here to begin with, except for the cat."

"It's _Cat_ and look," Coraline exclaimed, "I'm flattered by your flattery, but I don't want to be a local, I want to be a human-" She paused. "No offence, but if there is one thing I've learned from being here, is that being human is better than not-" Another pause. "Um, can you give a moment to figure out how to tell you politely that-"

"There is no need to," Yassa smiled, though it was a sad smile, "ever since your partial change, you have seen for what we are and that does not entice you at all. You are wise for your years, Coraline Jones, and will not exchange power for honesty, though you understand that not. Very well then, I shall take you and your friends to meet the Lady of Summer."

And then it all changed.

_To be continued..._


	11. The Lady of Summer

**The Lady of Summer**

_Disclaimer: some of the characters are mine. Coraline and friends belong to Neil Gaiman and to LAIKA studios._

The change was instantaneous: one moment the odd quintet plus Yassa was standing at a wooden well on a mountaintop in the middle of a sea of bird cherry shrubs, and the next they were standing, instead, in a garden full of apple-trees, fenced in by a wooden fence, of all things. Standing before them was a Lady, at whose feet a small, greyish, tabby cat was curled. The cat was quite nondescript, and on its own Coraline – at least – would say that their feline friend was much more impressive in appearance; but its' owner...

By now, Coraline was beginning to get used to that the inhabitants of the other world, those who were not animals to begin with, were not human, but more like humanoid versions of trees, shrubs, water wells and so on. However, the Lady of Summer – and it could not be anyone else but her – was very different from them: she _glowed_. She was as white, glowing, and fair as the now-bound Terraxia had been foul and dark, or perhaps even more so; she glowed as brightly as the summer sun and just as warmly.

_Perhaps,_ Coraline mused quietly to herself, _she _is _the summer sun just as a sprite is fresh flowing water or a dryad is a tree. This _could_ be true_ here_, after all._

Suddenly, Coraline became aware that her companions – her non-animal companions, that is – were standing stock-still and trembling from the sight. Carefully – for she was not sure herself that she was not trembling herself – Coraline took each of their hands into her own. She felt Wybie's meatier hand on her right, while Christabell's bigger and skinner hand grasped her left. All in all it felt rather weird and disturbing – Coraline wasn't used to being the courageous one; after all, all that she did was stand up to Christabell back when the latter still thought of herself as evil (albeit a somewhat decent and honourable evil, but evil nonetheless), and went into an unknown world to search for Wybie and confronted Christabell's remaining other aunts... Apparently, she _was_ braver than she thought after all!

Of course, Christabell was quite brave herself, as her rescue and assistance of Coraline had proven, and Wybie... here Coraline's thoughts became derailed as the Lady of Summer began to speak.

_[Break]_

"Hello, children," the Lady of Summer spoke, and to Wybie her voice sounded like the wind in a field of wheat and cornflowers, in a garden of apple-trees (like the one in which they were already), and among the bulrushes that grew alongside a relatively deep, slow-moving river.

...All right, so Wybie's dreams were influenced a lot by Mark Twain's fiction, but he was just an 11-year-old (well, almost 12 years old in a couple of months) boy. What he was supposed to dream about? Coraline? Well, he did not. Really. He did not! Not in the least...

Here Wybie began to suspect that all of this _not_ thinking about Coraline began to manifest in his neither regions and that he should shift his mental processes about something else – like about what the Lady of Summer was speaking about: something that he had missed as he had thought about Coraline, which he did not.

"...Christabell de Veux," the Lady was meanwhile speaking not to Wybie which was good, because right now the boy wasn't quite sure that he still felt adequate or ready to speak to her up close and personal. "You have kept true to yourself ever since you came here, and never forgot your true self, even though the temptation was great to do just so. You proved to your foes and friends, that human blood and human heart are greater than any fay magic, good or evil. For this, I restore the balance that was broken by the meddling of the hags – you get your life back! And worry not – the Seelie court does not cheat like our Unseelie counterparts do."

Wybie could not quite see what the Lady did to his new friend (or at least acquaintance - Christabell did not seem to be too friendly towards him, more like detached, really), but somehow he felt that the world did become a better place and that life was good. He almost smiled, but suddenly the Lady was before _him_, instead.

"Wybourne Lovat," the Lady's smile was shining and gentle at the same time. "Though you tend not to think too much or too correctly with your head, your heart is pure and your courage is strong. My friend the duchess-paragon had told me much of your brave and simple spirit."

Wybie turned red. Being of a more scientific bent than Coraline was, he was not too happy about being brave and simple – not really.

"And what is more, you have adhered to your lady friend" – she must have meant Coraline, though a lady friend... – "despite her ill-fortune at the hags' hands, and for that the Seelie court salutes you! Wybie Lovat, you're welcome at this court and its domain for evermore!"

Wybie tried to thank the Lady, but his throat refused to work beyond some incoherent sounds in the back of it. Fortunately, the glowing woman was now in front of Coraline, thus saving Wybie from humiliating himself even more so than how he was already.

"Coraline Jones," the Lady meanwhile was saying. "In all honesty, your friends speak true: your intelligence is quick and your heart is pure, even if you don't use them at the same time or at the right time at all. You have proven without a doubt that you are human no matter what, and for that, human you'll be!"

Wybie did not hear Coraline's reply, but he was sure that his newest friend made a squeak of her own as well.

"And now," the Lady continued, just as warmly and gently, just a bit more... sadly? "And now it is time for you to go home, this quest of yours has come to an end!"

With those words, the Lady of Summer burst into a wall of almost blinding sunlight, and Wybie Lovat knew nothing more for a while.

_[Break]_

The tick-tock of the clock woke Coraline Jones from her sleeping position – lying on her stomach, her nose buried deep in a pillow. "Ow," she groaned, as she tried to massage the kinks out of her neck, which has grown stiff from being stuck in one position for too long. "That was some... crazy... dream..."

Coraline drawled off. Was it all a dream? Her adventures in the other world, her bridge mending with Christabell, her growing a tail (okay, that _could_ be a dream, no problem), the monstrous hags – her potential "other grand-aunts"? Was it all a dream or-

Slowly, Coraline cast her gaze at the corner where the small door to the other world (or at least a part of it) was. It was gone, and that shocked Coraline even more so than anything else did. Could it be that all of her adventures were just a series of dreams created by her boredom due to the absence of her parents because of some dumb dissertation? If so, was Wybie and Cat also a dream-

A soft but stern "Meow" shook Coraline out of her tearful shock – Cat, at least, was clearly not a dream, and was currently gazing at her with his wise blue eyes. Then... it turned around and began to trot out of Coraline's room, clearly hinting that the girl should follow it.

Having nothing to do, and secretly beginning to hope that there was more to her dreams than just dreams, Coraline followed her feline friend.

And ran smack into another person.

"Ooof!"

"Coraline, watch where you are going – or are you still sleepy?"

The voice was female and young, and so was the speaker – just a few years older than Coraline herself, in fact: 14 or 15 years of age. In addition – strangely familiar, as Coraline stepped back and looked at her.

The girl was thin, with pale skin and black hair and piercing green eyes, like some bird's. She was dressed in black pants and grey sweater, and Wybie was standing behind her, actually looking sleepy, while Coraline did not.

"Geraldine, sis," he grunted, "what happened?"

"Geraldine?" Coraline repeated, looking at the other girl (Wybie's sister?!) and finding several similarities to the former Beldam, Christabell, mainly in the colour of skin and hair and in the thin body. The color scheme of clothing too was similar enough, but... Wybie's sister?!

"Coraline, are you all right?" Geraldine meanwhile was speaking once again, and her voice too was somewhat similar to Christabell's, save for age difference.

"Oh sis, cut it out – you're only nervous because you're afraid that if something goes wrong, the Joneses won't let you baby-sit ever again."

"Hey, I am eleven! I don't need to be babysat!" Coraline felt righteous indignation suppress even her current confusion.

"Yeah! And neither do I!" Wybie eagerly chimed in.

"Children!" Geraldine began to speak in a huff of teenagers when they try to be grown-up. "Behave yourselves! Coraline, your father called and said that they're going to be back soon."

"How soon? It is only... eleven thirty? I feel asleep-"

"You and squirt here fell asleep shortly after supper, which was around nine," Geraldine shrugged noncommittally, "but hey, you had a busy day running all around the flat and what not with that feline of ours."

"Hey!"

"Anyways, I also dozed off, and only your dad's phone call caused me to wake-up-"

And here Geraldine was interrupted by the sound of the key unlocking the flat's front door.

_[Break]_

As the Joneses entered the apartment, Coraline and the Lovats stood at attention, ready to react if the adults were to be in a funny mood – which they were. However, this mood manifested in Mrs. Jones in a strange way – she just walked across the flat and locked herself in the parents' bedroom. Mr. Jones was left on his own to explain the situation to the kids, which he did in his usual way – helplessly.

"Look, um, kids," he told his daughter's guests, "I, uh-"

"We're leaving," Geraldine said quickly, "come on, squirt!"

"Right – see you tomorrow, Jonesy, I mean – Coraline, I mean-"

"Let's _go_ squirt," Geraldine grabbed her brother by ear and pulled him out of the Joneses flat. However, as she turned around to close the door and wish Coraline a good night, she winked. In a very knowing, pointed and suggestive way.

Then she and Wybie were gone, walking to their grandmother's place instead.

_[Break]_

"Coraline?" Mr. Jones inquiring voice brought the girl back to reality as she slowly digested the fact that dreams have a grain of truth and that Christabell did live on. "Can we talk?"

"Yes, dad. Is it about mom? Something wrong about your dissertation?"

"No, Coraline, it's not that. You see, uh, your mother, she's, um, pregnant – by, well, me. You are going to be a big sister now! Isn't it great?"

And Coraline, a girl who had faced off many challenges and monstrous witches, said – in a rather shaky, scared voice – "Narf?" and promptly fainted dead away.

_The End._


End file.
